Endure All Things
by seilleanmor
Summary: Holiday fic. A chapter a day. Spoilers for all US aired episodes. Set in the More Than Together universe, although I suppose it's not necessary to have read that fic to understand this one.
1. Chapter 1

_Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. _

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

* * *

**Sunday, December 1****st**

* * *

Sunlight spills through from between the cracks in the blinds and casts a pool of warmth onto the sheets that makes Kate hum in pleasure as she arches her spine. Falling slack onto the mattress, she burrows down a little closer into the sleepy heat of her husband. Her eyes half-closed against the early morning, Castle is little more than a smudged outline silhouetted against the too-bright light.

"Want coffee?" He grunts into the top of her head, fingers flexing against the stretch of bare skin at her hip where her shirt rides up. They got to bed late last night and Kate's body is still pleasantly loose, her muscles free from tension as if they've come completely unwound from around her bones. Except, obviously, the ways they moved last night are proof enough that that didn't happen.

She lifts up and supports her weight on an elbow to glance at the clock. "No, not yet. They'll be in here soon enough. Until then let's just enjoy the quiet."

"M'kay. Plans for today?"

"The park, I thought. Get them out to burn off some energy." Kate smiles softly, letting the tug of Castle's hands bring her in to lie against his side again. Outside, the air is sharp with winter's kiss so the people that flood the streets bury their faces down into their scarves, touches of vibrant colour at the throats of the city. The cold feels good, invigorating, and even the sting of the wind at her cheeks is easily forgotten in the warmth of Castle's loft.

Their home.

And it is home, now. Half of the strange ornaments and well-loved books that scatter the shelves were vagabonds for a while until she, and they, settled here. Neither Kate nor her husband can remember who first collected the items. Not that it really matters. Their personalities mesh well together, everything in confluence like a chaotically beautiful embodiment of the way their lives are joined.

Kate wriggles a little in the sheets and tips her chin upwards, kisses the stubble that skims her husband's jaw and relishes the burn against her lips. When she catches the thin skin between her teeth he jerks, clutches at the smooth curve of her shoulder. "Don't. You said it yourself, they'll be in here any minute."

"Oh what, so I'm not allowed to touch you?"

"Kiss me nicely." He grins at her, cocky and a little lopsided. It reminds her so much of their son, the mischief that so often plasters his face.

Pushing all thoughts of her children firmly out of her mind, Kate drapes herself over Castle's chest and comes in to touch her mouth to his. He opens for her slowly, his tongue coming out to touch at the seam of her lips, and she has to stifle a gasp.

His hands come around to smooth over her spine, fingertips dipping into the valleys between and cresting the peaks of her vertebrae. The way he touches her is always so tender, so careful. Especially the way his wide hands would spread out across the swollen curve of her stomach, diffusing his warmth all the way through her as he murmured to their unborn children. So in love with them even when they were barely a flutter of life against his palm.

The door opens slowly and Kate presses a last burst of a kiss to Castle's mouth, shifts to sit up against the headboard. In the doorframe, their son watches her intently. "Good morning, sweet boy."

Jack seems to take her words as permission, coming over to climb up on her side of the bed. His pyjamas are too small for him yet again, a good inch of bare ankle sticking out below the hem. Unruly curls fall down into his eyes over and over and he huffs, shoves them back with both hands.

He needs a haircut, and maybe to just. . .stop growing. For a little while. Her baby boy feels almost as long as her when he stretches out at her side, little hand fisting in the collar of her shirt.

"Hey my man, your sister up yet?" Castle says, looming over the two of them. He rubs the space between their boy's shoulder blades, the hypnotic movement so similar to when Jack was a tiny, squirmy thing and only his father's sure touch could settle him.

"She was just using the bathroom." Jack offers, drawing his knees up to press against his mother's thigh. Kate cards her fingers through the spill of his hair over and over, her other hand settling to curl around her son's little foot.

Their daughter appears in the bedroom with the dog her ever-present shadow, Snicket's head nudging at their little girl's hip. "Daddy and Mommy, it's the first day of Christmas."

Bea's shrieking has Jack scrunching up his nose and burying his head half underneath Kate's back, but she doesn't have the heart to try and tamper her enthusiasm. It's too late anyway; Castle already has their daughter gasping for breath in the middle of the bed as he tickles her mercilessly.

On the floor next to her, the dog cocks his head at Kate and widens his eyes. She rolls her own back at him, curling a hand around Jack's waist to keep him anchored in the bed as she leans in to scratch behind Snicket's ear. The silly thing nuzzles into her touch and then curls up on the rug, perfectly content despite the excitement coming from her husband and her baby girl.

It's her only rule, really. No dog in the bed. Not that it stops him from jumping up to join in with family cuddle time on the couch.

"Okay kids, who's hungry?" Kate says, climbing carefully over her son and stepping out of bed. She turns back to watch her family blink up at her, Castle sandwiched between their children and then Jack stretches his arms up towards her and she gives in, comes back to scoop him up.

It's probably time she stopped indulging him so much, but the sleep-warm body of her son feels so inherently right cradled close to her chest that she can't seem to stop saying yes to him. Kate carries him through to the kitchen and sets him down at the counter, takes a moment to make sure he's not going to slip right off the bar stool.

Those are a recent reacquaintance, the kids having been drilled over and over on the importance of being careful. Jack takes it very seriously, sitting up straight and proper with his hands clasped tight between his knees. The same cannot, unfortunately, be said for his sister. Bea very quickly figured out that the adrenaline rush that comes with only just managing to prevent the stool from toppling is the most exciting development of recent times, and now breakfast time is often fraught with tension as she tests just how far she can push both the stool and her mother's patience.

Taking a deep breath, Kate tugs open the refrigerator and tries not to think about it. It's Christmas, and she wants to give her kids the magic that sparks in her husband's eyes when he talks about it all. Their very first Christmas, Jack barely five months old; she was probably a little hard on Castle.

So now every year is a chance to make up for it, every decoration and frosted adventure thick with apology. It's actually. . .fun. More so than she expected. The marriage of her traditions and his and the new ones they forge for their own children, the ways that Papa and Gram and Alexis are brought into it, all of it comes easier than she ever anticipated.

"Jack-Jack. First day of Advent. Shall we make pancakes in celebration?"

Her son grins at her, delighted and maybe a little shy. "Chocolate ones?"

"Sure."

"Katherine Castle, did I just hear you agree to chocolate chip pancakes?" Her husband's voice rings out from across the living room, an eyebrow raised when she turns to look at him. She shrugs, opening her arms for the little girl in Castle's arms as they round the counter.

Seeking the warmth at her daughter's neck, Kate blows raspberries until Bea squirms, breathless giggles pushed into the hollow of her mother's clavicle as she buries her face close against Kate. "Beanie Ella, how about Daddy gets started on the pancakes and you and me and Jack can go open your calendars."

"No, Mommy!" Bea huffs, screwing up her little face so it might be comical if Kate weren't so hyper-aware of her daughter's sensitivity. Her baby girl is very, very serious about certain things, and trying to laugh her out of it has never been a good idea.

"No?"

"I want to open my calendar with my daddy too." She says quietly, glancing over at her father from underneath the smoky fringe of her lashes. So long for a four year old, fragile and captivating.

Certainly, it helps her keep Castle wrapped securely around her little finger. "You want me and Mommy both?"

"Yes. And too my brother. And, Mommy? And my dog." She insists, folding her arms so they rest atop Kate's own wrist as she circles her daughter's waist.

"Everyone, then. Let's do advent calendars. Come on, Snicks." Kate calls to the dog, letting Bea down to her feet and guiding her with her palm cradling the back of the girl's head. She clutches at her brother's hand and Jack straightens up a little, takes his role as big brother very seriously.

"Daddy, you can take them down for us? They're too high." Jack says, tugging at the leg of his father's pyjama pants.

Castle grins, curls his hand around Kate's waist to bring her in against him and press a smacking kiss to her temple. In gratitude for their beautiful family, she knows. Often she does the same to him, soft touches and a shared smile whenever one of the kids does or says something wonderful.

An occurrence so frequent that she can't help the slow-spreading warmth of pride in her chest. They made some really, really great kids.

"Mommy's almost as tall as me, you know. Why don't you ask her to help you?" Rick raises an eyebrow at their son, grinning widely at the boy.

Jack turns wide eyes to her, his face opening up into joy as she smiles back at him. "Mommy?"

"I got you, baby. Here, let's try this." She says, scooping him up from the floor so he can reach the calendar. He scans the little doors, row upon row of delicious opportunity spreading out before them and carrying them right through until Christmas.

Jack finds today's door faster than his sister does, turns to watch Bea leaning so close to her own calendar she looks as if she could topple right out of her father's arms. Eventually, she finds the right door and the two of them push in the little cardboard semicircles and curl tiny fingers into the space, tugging open their doors.

Kate has to cut through the foil that keeps them from the chocolate with the hard edge of her fingernail so they can peel it back and then both of them have the candy tipped out into their palms.

"I have a Christmas tree, Mommy, look." Jack shows her the shape carved into his little chocolate square, and then Castle's laughter has Kate and her son both turning to look at him.

"Oh, Beanie Baby, you didn't look at your shape. She just shoved it right into her mouth." Castle meets Kate's eyes, his own soft with mirth. He wraps his arms a little tighter around their daughter and kisses her cheek, grinning wider when she frowns at him.

"Now I not know."

"Sure you will, baby girl." Kate hums, shifting closer to her husband's side so she can lean in and inspect her daughter's calendar. "Look, see. It has a little picture of whatever your chocolate shape was behind the plastic. Do you see?"

"Oh, Mommy, it was an angel. Like you."

Kate's cheeks flame and she leans in to kiss her baby girl, hums quiet words of gratitude in the translucent shell of her ear. And then Castle brings his free arm around her so both of their children end up sandwiched between his chest and her own, Snicket nudging his way in between their calves.

Of course the kids get impatient and wriggle to get free within moments, but for one peaceful, lovely second her whole world was just-

Yeah. Perfect.

* * *

**Tumblr: **katiehoughton

**Twitter: **seilleanmor


	2. Chapter 2

**Monday, December 2****nd**

* * *

By the time the kids emerge from upstairs, sleepy and a little bedraggled, Kate already has toast and scrambled eggs waiting for them. There's no active case, so she can take the time to make breakfast for her children and revel in the quiet time alone with them, her husband still sacked out on his back in their bed.

"Good morning. You guys sleep okay?" She murmurs, coming around the counter to crouch down and gather them both up against her. Bea's head falls to rest in the curve where Kate's neck meets her shoulder, too heavy for the tiny wisp of a girl to support this morning.

"I sleep good, Momma. I dreamed that I was the queen of all the sharks." Bea grins, stepping back from Kate's embrace to struggle her way up onto the bar stool.

Kate curls her freed-up arm around her son and squeezes him, tight enough that it makes him huff a breath and send a shower of giggles cascading over her. "Jackson?"

"Good. Did you make eggs, Mommy?"

"I did." Kate shares a grin with her little boy, nudges him to go sit next to his sister as she stands. Rounding the counter, Kate dishes up the eggs and sets plates in front of her kids, pours orange juice for them too. The hard edge of the counter presses into her hipbones as she leans against it, watching the two of them eat and occasionally sneaking a bite from Jack's plate.

He lets her have it, barely a shift of his face to suggest he even notices. If she were to scavenge from Bea, there'd be a fully blown hysterical meltdown. So like her Daddy that way, thriving on the melodrama.

"Are you starting Christmas activities at school today, Jack?"

Their son glances up at her, takes a moment to swallow his mouthful before he responds. In the interim, Kate reaches out to smooth her thumb over the shell of his ear. It still surprises her every day, how much she loves these kids. More than she ever knew she had the capacity for.

"Christmas week is next week. We do crafts and games then. This week is just normal." He shrugs, chewing at the crusts of his toast.

Kate nods, takes both of their empty plates to rinse them. Even if the kids hadn't greeted their father, the measure of his footsteps across the living room is so familiar to her now that she knows Castle's here before he slides his arms around her waist and presses a smacking kiss to her cheek.

"Good morning, Mommy." He hums against her cheek, his thumb nudging up underneath her dress shirt to circle her skin where it stretches thin over her hipbone.

Kate turns in the circle of his arms and grins, lifting her chin to kiss him properly. He lets her go after a moment and she leans back against the sink to watch him feed the birds with both of their children, smacking kisses to both dark heads when they duck to escape his affections.

"You guys had breakfast without me?"

"We couldn't wait, Daddy." Bea simpers up at her father, grabbing for his hand. "We were soooo hungry."

Castle shares a glance with Kate over the girl's head and then refocuses his attention, nodding at her and his jaw set hard as he contemplates this information. "Well did you at least leave me some?"

"Eggs are in the oven keeping warm." Kate affirms, coming around the counter to kiss her husband's cheek first and then the kids, one at a time. "I have to go."

"Bye Mommy!" Bea shrieks, throwing her arms around Kate's neck to tug her down for another hug.

Kate cards a hand through the spill of her daughter's curls and breathes in the sleepy scent of her, her other palm smoothing over the ridges of the girl's spine. "Goodbye, sweetheart. I'll see you at dinner. Be good for Daddy."

She gets a nod of affirmation from both her kids and then Castle's trailing her to the front door, his hand cradling her elbow as she steps into her shoes. "Text me if there's still no case at lunch and Bea and I will bring it up for you."

"Will do. Any other plans with her today?"

Rick shrugs, glancing back to the girl. She's playing some elaborate game with her brother that seems to involve her trying to poke him and then draw her hand back fast enough that he doesn't get the chance to bite her. Huh, crazy kids.

"Park, maybe? Take Snicket out."

"Okay. Have fun." Kate murmurs, leaning in to kiss him properly. Castle curls his arm low around her waist to tug her hips in against his own, his tongue just darting out to meet hers before he steps back.

"See you at lunch."

* * *

"Daddy?" His daughter blinks up at him, her little body clad in tights and a dress. Kate bought it for her, far more ready to indulge their daughter's flair for material things than he could have anticipated. She loves dressing their baby girl, has done from the moment Bea was placed in her arms all squirmy and red-faced.

"Yes Beanie Baby?"

"Can I hold Snicket?"

Oh. Right. The dog tugs gently at the leash but he's pretty good at staying heeled. And there aren't many people in the park today, not a lot of opportunity for distraction. So why not. "Sure. Remember what we said though, he's pretty strong. He might pull you over."

"That's okay. It's just because he's excited is all." Bea says, reaching for the leash and wrapping her own little fingers around it. Snicket must sense the change because he's wheeling around to nudge his head into Bea's side and wait for her to scratch him.

Castle's daughter gets a lick to the face and she squeals, rubs her cheek against Rick's thigh to wipe off the drool. Fantastic, now his pants have a damp spot. He can already picture the climb of Kate's eyebrow to her hairline when she gets a look at him.

"You want to feed the ducks, baby girl?" Castle offers, his fingers curling over Bea's shoulder. Through the gloves it's a little tricky, his hands stiff, but it's worth it to feel the hum of excitement in his daughter's body.

"Yes yes yes. Do you have bread with you?"

"Of course." Rick grins, tugging the bag of stale bread out of his pocket. It's something of a tradition of theirs. When Bea was very tiny he used to strap her into the baby sling and let her bounce with joy as she watched the ducks converge over the food he offered.

Now, his baby girl stands tall at his side and takes the bread he offers, the dog sitting on her command. "Can we throw it all?"

"Sure. But let's do just a little here, and save some for when we get further around the lake. For the other ducks."

"Okay, Daddy."" She beams up at him, reaching into the bag to pull free chunks of bread and launch them into the glassy surface of the water. The ducks come in close to the bank, drawn by the siren song of food, and the reeds hide several of them from view.

Snicket tilts his head in observation but doesn't move any closer and Castle crouches down, smoothing his fingertips over the dog's silky head and grinning when the vivid pink length of his tongue touches at Rick's wrist. "Good boy, Snicks."

"Daddy, these ducks are all full up. Can we keep walking?"

"Of course we can baby." Castle gets to his feet, grunting at the twinge of awareness in his knee. His daughter runs off ahead with the dog flying along at her side, the two of them tethered together with his leash. Tearing down the path, the dappled sunlight flits over Bea's cheeks from between the crooked fingers of the trees where they splay against the hard blue of the midday sky.

The dog and the girl both come screeching to a halt, panting hard, and turn to wait on him. When he reaches his daughter she stretches up to take his hand, apparently now content to walk at his pace. In his pocket, his phone hums the arrival of a message and he tugs it free, scans it quickly.

"Hey Little Bean. Mommy's not busy, so what do you say we take lunch up for her and your uncles?"

His daughter's whole face opens up onto this beautiful wash of light, her smile huge and pure. "Oh, yes. We can go to Remy's?"

"Of course. Do you remember which milkshake Mommy likes best?"

"Strawberry!" Bea looks so pleased with herself that Castle can't help but scoop her up and plaster her with kisses until she squirms, her palms braced at his cheeks to shove his face away. The dog butts his head against Castle's thigh and he glances down, can't help but sigh.

"We'll do Remy's. But first we gotta detour and drop Snicket back home."

* * *

"Tío!"

The detective glances up at the call of his niece's voice across the bullpen and Castle curls his fingers in the girl's collar to corral her, tugging her back to his side. "Say hello to Mommy first. Before your uncles, Little Bean. Mommy loves you best."

There's a moment where Bea's lip trembles and she turns enormous eyes up to him, but Castle hands her the milkshake and nudges her in the direction of her mother's desk, watches his wife try to pretend she's not listening in.

Their daughter climbs into her mother's lap easily enough, both arms looping around Kate's neck as she nuzzles her cheek. Kate smiles back at her, taking the milkshake Bea offers and sipping at it while their daughter babbles on about her morning.

Castle moves to Esposito's desk, hands him and Ryan both a burger and a shake of their own. "Thanks, man." Ryan grins, nodding at his niece. "How's your little diva this morning?"

"Good, I think. Christmas excitement hasn't really kicked in yet, but we'll see."

He can't help but watch his wife and daughter, faces close like they're sharing a secret. Bea has her palms splayed at Kate's cheeks, her eyes intent, and then her mother must say something funny because she's dissolving into giggles and Kate's following right behind her.

Such a wonderful mother. And he always knew, it was one of the first things he ever figured out about her, but seeing her in action has him falling for her all over again, just as hard as the first time.

Moving back to Kate's desk, he sinks into his chair and clutches the arms of Beckett's chair to wheel her in close. He kisses her mouth and then Bea's forehead, sits back enough to grin at them both. "You tell Mommy about the ducks?"

"Yes. Mommy, where is Cap?"

"In her office, sweet girl. Go say hello." Kate lets their daughter slide down her legs to the floor and watches her run towards Captain Gates' office, turning to Castle only when the captain opens the door for Bea and brings her inside.

No one could have anticipated how much Gates would love their children. Beckett says it's because the captain has something of a soft spot for her, but Castle remains adamant that it's just. . .his kids. Totally adorable.

Although that argument doesn't hold its ground very well when he remembers that the adorable gene totally comes from their mother. Either way, Gates dotes on their kids. Through the window he can see that she's allowing Bea to sit behind her desk and spin in the chair, laughing freely as she clutches at the arms.

"Good morning?" He asks, turning back to his wife.

A smile spreads slowly across her face and she reaches for his hand, threads her fingers between his own. "Better now that you're here."


	3. Chapter 3

**Tuesday, December 3****rd**

* * *

"Time to get up, Beanie Ella. Come on." Castle murmurs, kneeling down next to his daughter's bed. The hardwood is cold even through the thickness of his jeans, tendrils of ice that curl their long fingers into his bad knee and make it stiff, uncooperative.

His daughter screws her nose up and turns her face away from him, eyes still resolutely closed. Hair spilling across the pillow like a nimbus, his tiny girl mumbles something indistinct and snakes a pale hand free from the sheets to rest at his cheek.

Eventually, she gets her eyes open and turns a sleepy smile up to him, drawing both arms around his neck. He lifts her free from the bed and curls his arms around her, holds her close to his chest. "Good girl. Preschool today, hmm?"

"School." She hums, rubbing her face back and forth against his shoulder. It's adorable, really, his sleepy baby girl and the way she seeks him out for comfort.

"That's right. Jack's having cereal, do you want some too?"

Bea fists a hand in the material of Rick's shirt, holds on as he carries her out of the room and down the staircase. A pair of shoes lies discarded on the second to bottom step and Castle almost trips, has to catch himself with a hand tight around the railing and take a moment to suck in a drowning breath.

Heart pounding so hard against the cage of his ribs that Bea shifts to stare up at him, he makes it to the kitchen without incident and deposits his daughter on the stool next to her brother. "You want Cookie Crisp, Beanie Baby?"

"Yes please. Where's Mommy?" His daughter frowns, drumming a rhythm onto the countertop with her spoon, an obtrusive purple plastic thing that she can never seem to resist beating against the nearest surface.

Castle pours cereal into her bowl, _Green Lantern_ like her brother, and tops it off with milk. He hands it to her and takes Jack's empty one, scrubs at the corner of his son's mouth where chocolate blooms like a mole. "Mommy had to go to work."

Yes. At three in the morning. But even the claws of tiredness that threaten to drag him right down can't quite shake his good mood this morning. It's a preschool day, and Kate caught a case. Which means he can go to the precinct, spend the hours his kids are at school building theory with his wife.

Castle washes up the breakfast dishes while he waits for Bea to finish eating, a coffee-coloured ring on the draining board where Kate left her cup. He offered to get up, fix her drink while she showered, but she silenced him with a touch of her mouth and the circle of her thumb at his chin. Told him to conserve his energy for their kids.

Eventually, his daughter finishes up and Castle drops her bowl in the sink to deal with later, shepherds both kids over to where their calendars hang. Yesterday, they kicked up a mighty fuss when he tried to have them get dressed before they got their chocolate, and even if he'd rather utilise it as a bribe he quickly decided it's not worth the effort.

"Daddy?" His son tugs at the bottom of his shirt, the chocolate square cupped in his palm. "Will you take a picture so I can show my Mommy?"

"Of course I can, my man. If you want we could text it to her." Castle offers, framing the shot of his son's prize and snapping a couple of pictures.

Jack shakes his head, chewing on his bottom lip a moment before he slides the chocolate past his lips. "No. I want to see her face when I can show her."

Ah, well, he can't blame his son for that. Kate's just. . .incredible, the way her whole face is washed with light as if she's bathing in the joy their children bring her. "Alright, buddy. We'll show Mommy at dinner then. Right you two, time to get dressed."

The kids scamper up the stairs, racing to their respective bedrooms, and Castle can't help but laugh as he follows behind them. He hurries them through dressing, face washing and teeth brushing and then he takes a hand from each child and takes them back downstairs and right out of the front door. Snicket follows them to the threshold and tips his head in askance, eyes so huge and imploring that Castle lets his daughter go back to throw her arms around the dog's neck.

"Sorry, Snicks. I'm going to see your mom after I drop these two. We'll walk you after school." The puppy's ears prick at the familiar word but he doesn't try to follow, watches as Castle closes the door on him.

Jack presses the call button for the elevator and Bea presses the button for the parking garage, the two of them having worked out a fair division of duty when Bea first showed interest. Castle straps the kids into the back of the SUV and pulls out of the garage, joins the flow of morning traffic that cuts through the city like a stream, a source of life.

And all the time the kids chatter away and the nursery rhyme CD hums its brain-numbing song and Bea's feet drum against the back of the passenger seat, but Castle's mind is already at the precinct. At Kate's side.

Getting to help out with cases comes with a thrill these days akin to when he first started shadowing Beckett, back when the woman herself was an enigma all wrapped up in divine beauty and impenetrable walls and the cases were an excitement he'd found himself lacking for years.

Now, she's his wife, and the cases are a sense of purpose and direction he no longer finds himself in such desperate need of. Not when he has three beautiful children and a grandson to shape his life, fill his days with mirth and light.

All of that, everything he has now, is because of Kate, and he's so grateful. He needs to see her. Now.

* * *

Kate glances up at the sound of the elevator announcing its arrival, swivels in her chair to see her husband striding towards her with a coffee clutched in each hand and his face cracked open on a grin. When he reaches her desk he hands her travel cup over and presses a smacking kiss to her cheek, sinking into his chair as her cheeks flood with heat.

He looks so pleased to see her that she could weep with gratitude. This man who loves her, and no matter how wonderful it is to come home to him and their children, she will always miss his presence in the precinct.

"Good morning, Detective. How's the case?"

Sipping at her coffee, Kate shrugs at him and lets the tender smile thread across her face. Ryan and Esposito are in the morgue with Lanie, so there's no one here to call her out on it. "Good morning. Kids get to school okay?"

Of course Castle understands. Their family comes first. This first, then the case. "Yeah, fine. They missed you at breakfast, Mommy. Jack made me take a picture of his advent chocolate so he could show you. And he wouldn't let me text it to you because he said he wanted to see your face when you saw it."

"Oh, really? Wow. We made a sweet kid, huh?" She grins at her husband, setting her cup down and spinning back around to face her computer monitor. "I'll make sure to practice my amazed face before I see him."

"You don't have to practice." Castle says, something in his voice that has her turning back to see the hard set of his jaw, his eyes intense on hers. "You're never more gorgeous than when your full attention is on our kids. I fall harder for you every time."

"Sap." She fires back, but she catches his fingers in hers and squeezes hard, tries to quiet the riot of butterflies flooding upward through her chest. He married her, and yet it still takes her by surprise just how much he adores her.

"The case?"

"Right. Uh, looks pretty open and shut. Maggie Reynolds. Neighbours called the cops this morning when they heard screaming. History of domestic violence, and Mr Reynolds didn't show up for work this morning. No signs of forced entry or anything else amiss."

"You put a BOLO out?" Castle asks, sipping at his coffee and leaning back in his seat. Kate raises an eyebrow at him and he swallows hard, has the decency to at least look sheepish. "Right. Of course."

"He has a sister up in White Plains. We're guessing he'll head there, so we called her to warn her." Kate says, her phone vibrating with a new message. She unlocks the screen, reads it and then glances to her husband, can't quite seem to help the grin. "He's there. White Plains cops have him in custody."

"You gonna go pick him up?" Castle sighs, already standing up from his chair.

Kate laughs, pushes at his shoulder to have him sit back down. "No, I'll send the boys. Might as well get started on the paperwork while I wait."

Castle groans, dropping his head to his hands and hamming it up. And she knows he's seeking sympathy, knows she's only feeding into it, but she drops her hand to his head and cards her fingers through his hair. "I know, I'm sorry. Boring case. Sucks that this is the one you made it here for."

"It's fine." He shrugs, grinning up at her. "I'll get to watch you in the box with him later, right? So sexy."

Rolling her eyes at that, Kate opens up a blank template on her computer and starts filling it in, catches Castle from the corner of her eyes busying himself with his phone. "New app?"

"Oh." He glances up at her, shakes his head. "No. Alexis. Apparently Harry's colicky. She's asking for advice."

"Maybe he needs a hug from his grandfather." Kate smirks, enjoying the rush of heat to her husband's cheeks.

He growls at her, scrubs a hand down his face. "You're such a bully, you know that?"

Laughing, Kate wheels her chair over until she can slip her knees between Rick's and frame his face in her palms, coming in to kiss him. He's unresponsive at first, still stubborn and a little upset with her, but the touch of her tongue to the seam of his lips is irresistible to him. When she pulls back he's staring at her, face a little slack with surprise. "I'm just teasing. I think the other night was proof enough that you're still young in some respects."

"Damn right. You want to make another baby, Kate, you gotta stop tearing holes in my ego."

Hold on. . .what? "Another baby?"

"I see how you are with Harry. You miss it, don't you?" He raises an eyebrow and she swats at his arm, huffs at him as she moves back to sit in front of her monitor.

"How I am with Harry? He's Alexis' son. What are you expecting, for me to just ignore him?" Kate scoffs, feels the rush of warmth to her cheeks. _Does_ she want another? She didn't think so, felt like her family was finished when Bea was born, but now he's filling her up with doubt.

Castle rolls his eyes at her for that, and really that's just unfair. That's _her_ thing. "Of course not. But you do miss it."

"Of course I do. There's nothing more amazing in the world than having your baby fall asleep all warm against your chest. But that doesn't mean I want another."

"So you don't?"

"No." She knows, now. For sure. "Our family is perfect to me, Castle. I don't feel like I need to add to it. Why, do you?"

"No, no. You're right. It's perfect."


	4. Chapter 4

**Wednesday, December 4****th**

* * *

Arching her back in the bed, Kate grins wide and full. This morning feels good, rolling in unhurried and cloaking her in the soft touch of winter sunlight. Wednesday is her day off. Wednesday and Sunday, and she's on call Saturdays.

When she got pregnant with Jackson, Kate sat down with her captain and together they figured out how this would work. It was Kate's biggest worry; really, the thing Castle had to talk out with her over and over before she even agreed to start trying. She doesn't want to miss out on her kids' lives, wants to be whole and affected and in it right along with them.

So far, it works out okay. Sure, she often misses breakfast, is only rarely able to pick them up from school. But she makes it for dinner almost every night, has only missed bathing them a handful of times. The worry that when they get older they'll begin to resent her nibbles away at the base of her spine, but she manages to push it back when her kids curl up with her and tell her stories about school and their adventures with Daddy.

Castle has a meeting with Black Pawn today, took Jack to school on his way to it, so this morning it's just her and Bea. The girl must still be sleeping; otherwise she would have crawled in to snuggle up in bed with her mother already.

Slipping out from between the sheets, Kate curls her toes until they crack and stretches them out again, moves quietly through the loft. The dog lifts his head from his paws to regard her and she stops on her way past his bed to scratch behind his ear.

Upstairs, the loft is shrouded in darkness. Kate pushes the door of her daughter's room open slowly, the splash of purple stars from the nightlight spilling across the floor to guide her way. She narrowly avoids stepping on a Lego brick, skirts the dollhouse and the battleship to reach the bed.

Sure enough, Bea is sprawled on her stomach, a fist tucked up under her chin. Kate settles a palm at her baby girl's back, feels where her pyjamas stick to her skin with sleep-sweat. It's early still, so she goes right ahead and climbs in to her daughter's bed.

The girl rouses just enough to nuzzle into her mother's side, fingers unfurling to tighten again in Kate's own shirt. Bea lets out a soft sigh of contentment, her little body limp and warm as a furnace. Kate eases an arm slowly under her little girl, brings her closer still against her chest, and then she lets her eyes slip closed.

Still early, the blackout blind battling back the splash of sunlight so the room is thick with the same textured darkness as three am. She could sleep.

The rise and fall of her daughter's chest is soothing, the whisper of her breath falling against Kate's ear so she moderates her own breathing to be in time with Bea's. The slow drag of air in and out of her own chest lulls her, the heat of her little girl tugs her back down into sleep.

Kate doesn't even try to fight, just lets it come. The absolute perfect contentment of a lazy morning in bed with her best girl.

* * *

When Kate wakes again it's to the insistent call of her daughter's voice, little hands fisted in the loose curl of her mother's hair. Her eyes slide open to see Bea watching her intently, a grin spreading across her face when she sees her mother. "Mommy. You're awake."

"I'm awake."

Curling both arms around her daughter's back, Kate tugs Bea down to lie sprawled against her chest and scatters noisy kisses across the little girl's cheeks and down her neck. Bea squeals and writhes, thrashing around, and Kate can't help but add her own laughter in harmony.

"Mommy, please no more." Her baby girl gasps, fighting for air, and Kate cradles her daughter's head in her palm, her other ghosting up and down Bea's spine. Such a tiny little wisp of a thing, although her voracity for life more than makes up for it.

"How did you sleep, my sweet girl?" Kate murmurs against the fragile shell of her daughter's ear, rolls over and gathers Bea up against the cove of her body. "Any cool dreams?"

"Me and Jack-Jack were swimming in the river. The big one that Daddy showed us the programme."

Ah, right. Last week she came home from work to find her husband nestled on the couch with a child curled underneath each of his arms, an enormous bowl of popcorn apparently forgotten on the table in front of them. Snicket was curled up next to Bea, so Kate went right ahead and snuggled down next to her son, his little body low down enough that she could reach to press her cheek to her husband's shoulder over top of him.

Absolutely enthralled, all three of them. Even the dog seemed fascinated at the glimpse of the Amazon's murky depths, the alien life teeming below the stillness of the water's surface. Kate doesn't pretend to understand it. Sure, once she did tell Castle that she prefers the magic of things that she can see and touch, but that fish with the three eyes and the lumpy body? Yeah. . .hardly magical.

If her daughter's dreaming about that fish, she'd really rather not know about it. "Wow. Did anything nibble at your toes?"

Kate reaches down to tickle her little girl's feet, huffs a breath when Bea draws her legs up and her knees hit the tender flesh of Kate's stomach. Managing to laugh through it, she slides an arm under her baby's waist to draw her in a little closer, hopefully contain any more of her erratic movements that want to surface.

"No nibbling. Only there was ducks." Bea says, sitting up in bed and pushing at the thick curl of her dark hair as it falls into her face. Kate sits up too and leans back against the headboard, snagging a hair tie from the nightstand and lifting her little girl to sit in the hollow of her folded legs.

As her fingers work through Bea's hair, weaving it into a braid, her baby girl chatters on about the other marine life she and her brother shared the waters of her dream with. Kate offers murmured sounds of encouragement, listening to the story intently as her hands work.

This is maybe her favourite thing. The way her kids have inherited their father's love for literature and can't wait to share it with her too, always hurrying to tell Mommy everything they've experienced, be it in their days without her or the things brought to them while they sleep.

Once upon a time, Castle's words tugged her back from drowning. And now her children's tales do that for her instead. Her eyes flood with silly tears and she wishes Rick were here, wants to press her mouth to his in gratitude.

"Okay Beanie Ella. What do you want to do today?" Kate says, injects her voice with a false cheer that comes flooding in for real when her daughter turns around to drop a sloppy kiss to her cheek.

Her daughter clambers out of bed and scurries for the closet, rummaging around inside and coming back with the apron and chef's hat her grandmother gifted her with a little while back. "We please can make Christmas cookies?"

"Of course we can make Christmas cookies, sweet pea. Do you think we could leave some for Daddy and Jack?"

"No Momma. Me and you eat thems all up." Bea offers her mother a sly grin and comes back to take her hand, pulling Kate up to her feet.

Shepherding her daughter out of the room, Kate keeps a tight hold of the girl's hand on the stairs, only letting go once they're in the kitchen and safely on level ground. "Right then munchkin. Do you know the first thing we need to do?"

"Get 'gredients!" Bea shrieks, withering a little under the raised eyebrow her mother sends her. "Um. . .wash hands?"

"Right. Come here then, Little Bean." Kate opens her eyes to her daughter, hefts Bea up onto her hip so she can reach to put her hands under the stream of warm water. Pressing a soft dusting of a kiss to her baby girl's temple, Kate flicks on the radio and sways with her.

Already, this is the most fun she's had in a long time.

* * *

Castle's cell phone vibrates hard in his pocket and he jolts, his awareness snapping back to his surroundings. For the past half hour or so he's been firmly entrenched in thoughts of his wife, the press and roll of her body over his last night. Mm, celebratory we-closed-the-case sex is so awesome.

Probably not his favourite, he has to admit. How could it be when contending with the day he proposed, their wedding night, the honeymoon. . .oh god, their first night. Not that every time with her doesn't completely remake him from the core outwards, but there are times that are tabbed with little red flags in his mind, calling him back to dwell on them over and over.

He manages to slide his phone out of his pocket without Gina noticing, by some miracle, and his heart kicks double time in his chest when he sees that the message is from his wife. Unlocking it, he opens up the text to see that it's actually just a picture with no words attached.

His baby girl standing in the middle of the kitchen with flour streaked through her hair, plastering her cheeks and the end of her nose. Still in her pyjamas, and he sees in the reflection displayed in the refrigerator that Kate is too, looks almost as dirty as their daughter.

_Looks like you might need some help with bath time_, he shoots back, leans back in his seat and wonders what his girls are doing.

Cookies, maybe? Could be. Bea wanted to make them last week and he told her no, but apparently Mommy is easier to break. At least for this.

_Her or me?_

The text sends warmth flooding to his cheeks and he swallows hard, glances around to make sure that no one else has noticed his sudden discomfort.

_Both? Have some fun with her and then oh, so fun with you Kate._

He can't help but picture how she'll roll her eyes, the dusting of pink that will leak onto her cheeks. She likes to pretend that she thinks him childish, but he knows how he gets to her. Oh yeah, Kate Beckett. He definitely gets to her.

Suddenly, he burns to get out of here. He needs to be at home, with his wife, show her just how much she affects him right back. Castle clears his throat and glances at his ex-wife, holds eye contact long enough that she must know before he even opens his mouth. "I have to go. Family emergency. Let me know if you decide anything."

And then he's standing up, shrugging into his jacket and striding purposefully through the door and down the corridor with his publisher's protests snapping at his heels.

Whatever, Gina. A lot of it is jealousy, he thinks. That his marriage with Kate is fundamentally better in every way than his marriage to Gina was.

Perhaps because Kate herself is fundamentally better than Gina. A better person, a better mother and mm, yes. . .a better lover. He really needs to get a hold of himself. It's barely one, at least seven hours before the kids are in bed and he can seek out some alone time with his gorgeous, gorgeous wife.

And that's okay too. He'll get home and help Kate scrub their baby girl clean and then maybe the three of them will go together to collect Jack from school. They'll cook dinner as a family and watch a movie before bed. Maybe his baby girl will fall asleep pillowed against his chest; Jack curled up safe in his mother's arms.

Doesn't matter what it looks like, only that it's this wonderful, malleable thing that he and Kate shape and nurture and help to grow. His family.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thursday, December 5****th**

* * *

Head firmly tangled in Nikki Heat and the hideous Russian gangster she's currently grappling with, Castle almost misses his phone ringing entirely.

The kids were tough this morning, kept fighting over completely irrelevant things. And Kate was at the precinct early so he had to handle it alone, feeling a failure every time Jack shoved at his sister and she bit him right back. So once he got them both dropped off at school and preschool, blessedly not his problem to deal with for the next few hours, he came back and flopped down in his desk chair and stress-wrote until the words on the page started to coagulate into something interesting, something _good_.

Castle swipes his thumb across the screen of his phone to accept the call and lifts it to his ear, his other hand hitting the keyboard shortcut to save his document with practised ease. "Alexis, hi pumpkin. How are you?"

"Great, thanks Dad. You? How're the kids?"

Rick grins, wheels his chair back far enough that he can prop his ankles on the desk and arch his back, let the blood flow back into all the right places. Really, he has to stop hunching over his laptop. Kate tuts at him whenever she catches him at it, but when the words are pouring out of him like that he finds it hard to even be aware of his position, let alone stop.

Okay, yes, he's reaching his mid-fifties and his body does tend to let him know, _loudly_, whenever he pushes too far. But it's fine. It will be fine. "Kids and I are great. You don't want to know how Kate is?"

"I _know_ how Kate is." Oh, his kid totally just rolled her eyes at him. And yeah, she has a baby of her own now but still, that's not acceptable. "I text her. Probably more than I should, but with Harry's colic. . .she'd tell me if I was annoying her, right Dad?"

"Of course she would. But she doesn't mind. I think she quite likes it, you. . .needing her for something." Castle says, standing up from the chair and meandering through to the kitchen.

"I do need her, Dad. We all do. She knows that, right?"

Rick pulls cold chicken from the refrigerator, bread from the cupboard, his phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear as he reassures his eldest child. "She knows. But I think it wouldn't hurt to remind her every now and then. I know that Kate pretends that she doesn't need the words, but she does. She does."

"Okay. Do you think I should call?"

Settling down at the kitchen island, Castle takes a bite of his sandwich, his words to his daughter muffled. "No. How about you guys come over for dinner tonight?"

"Oh." His daughter releases a breath of surprise, a pause settling over her as she considers his offer. "Yeah, okay. If Kate won't mind."

"Alexis."

"Right. Sorry. Yeah, okay. Six thirty?"

Castle grins, moves to write the event on the whiteboard tacked to the refrigerator. Not that he could possibly forget, but even so. He likes the shape of the words, the physical reminder. Alexis and her husband live in the city, but they both work and with the baby as well now they don't make it over nearly as often as he'd like.

"See you then, pumpkin."

* * *

Kate makes it home at six forty, had to shake herself in the elevator to smooth down the abrasive edges of her day. Really kinda sucked, actually. They caught a case at lunch and she feels mired down in it, nothing fitting together right. The boys are wonderful of course; Ryan even tries to spin fanciful stories to make the pieces fit.

But it's not Castle. It's not her husband. She misses him. A couple days a week at the precinct is great, but it's not enough. She won't tell him that, feels horrendously selfish for it, but she can't wait until Bea starts school full time and her partner can come back.

God, that's awful. Gritting her teeth, Kate steps off of the elevator and rolls her shoulders inside of her blazer, unlocks the front door and steps inside her home.

Immediately, a little body slams into her legs, almost taking her right down to the floor with him. Kate gives in, crouches down and curls an arm around her little boy to bring him in close. She kisses the crown of Jack's head, taking a moment to bury her nose in the mess of curls that spills over her son's forehead.

"Hi there, my sweet boy. Good day?"

"Mommy." Her son beams, throwing his arms around her neck. "The _best_ day. At school we did counting and crafts, and now Lex and Harry are here."

"Oh thanks, buddy. So I mean nothing?" Alexis' husband calls from the kitchen, apparently helping Castle with dinner. Alexis herself is curled on the couch with her son pillowed against her, hand ghosting up and down his spine. He must have just fed, then.

Jack tugs insistently at his mother's pants so Kate scoops the boy up and heads for the couch, settling next to her step-daughter with her own baby curling up into the warmth of her body like a kitten. "Hey Alexis. How's he doing? His colic any better?"

"A little, I think. Those tips you sent me seem to have helped him. Haven't they, little man?" Alexis hums into the crown of her son's head, kisses the dusting of red-gold hair over his scalp.

Beckett drops both hands to her son, smoothing up and down the boy's back to try and quell the longing. She doesn't want another baby, she's sure of that now. But still, she yearns for the warm little body snuggled up to hers. Alexis must catch something of the want on her face because she offers Kate a smile, traces the shell of her son's ear with her thumb.

"You want to burp him? Let me cuddle with my brother?"

Grinning, Kate eases the sleepy boy off of her lap and onto the couch cushion next to her, takes her. . .oh man, her grandson- takes him from Alexis. Holding the baby close to her chest, Kate stands up from the couch as gracefully as she can manage and makes her way to the kitchen, comes in against her husband's side.

"Hi gorgeous. How was your day?"

Kate stretches up to kiss the underside of his jaw, the scratch of stubble just beginning to come through. "Okay. Much better now."

Castle's arm curls low around her waist and he nudges the material of her shirt up a little, circles his thumb over her hip. His kiss comes first to her temple, drifting down to her cheek and stopping all too briefly at her mouth before he meets the crown of his grandson's head.

"Missed you today." Kate can't help but offer, eyes closed against the sucking tide of shame. Damn it, she promised herself she wouldn't put this on him, make him guilty for it. He said he had to write, and of course she understands that.

And, well, she gets him _now_, doesn't she?

Her husband comes back for her mouth again, apparently completely untroubled by the presence of their son-in-law only a few feet away. Their kiss is chaste, a sweet burst of a thing full of promise for later. "Love you, Mrs Castle."

It filters through her like light through stained glass, splashes of brilliant colour and the luxurious warmth of it. It feels like rings of life, her husband right at the centre of it with her and then rippling out from them their children and grandchildren, their parents, their precinct family.

Everyone orbiting, held together by the richness of the love she and Castle share. And God, she's maudlin tonight. Not good. Not with Alexis here.

The girl is still a little tentative when it comes to Kate, a little too eager to please. She glances over, sees Alexis on the couch spinning a story that has both Jack and Bea absolutely enthralled, staring up at their big sister like they can't quite believe they're being graced with her presence.

After dinner, she's going to pull Alexis aside, make the girl see how pivotally important she is to their family. How much they love her.

But first. . ."What are we eating?"

* * *

Alexis is a little startled at the curl of Kate's fingers around her elbow, drawing her away from the sink and gesturing for her dad to take over rinsing the dishes. She barely even has time to feel guilty for that before Kate pulls her into her father's study and nudges her towards the couch.

Outside, the first touches of snow are just beginning to fall in the city. Alexis hopes it settles, has always loved the serenity that winter's kiss brings to the bustle of New York. She manages to draw her attention away from the black mouth of the window and meet Kate's eyes, a brow raised in question.

"Alexis. You know I love you, right?"

"I- yes?" Alexis splutters, completely thrown by the question. Kate's slender fingers come to curl around Alexis' knee and she stares at the older woman, probably looks like a total idiot.

It's just. . .her step-mother slash aunt slash friend (and isn't that part of the problem? That she can't label their relationship) doesn't do this. Doesn't make the first move, doesn't lay her heart out for people to see.

Only with Alexis' father, and even then it wasn't so much a laying out as him burrowing his way inside and forcibly dragging her into the light.

"Do you really?" Kate says, carefully pieced together. Her face is still, impassive, but Alexis is getting better at deciphering her other tells.

Alexis shrugs, has to force herself not to fold her arms. "You kind of. . .didn't have a choice. I'm a package deal with Dad."

"_No_, Alexis, you don't think that. Tell me you don't think so little of me?" Kate groans, scrubbing a hand down her face. "To tell you the truth, I probably loved you before I loved your father."

"You did?"

It shouldn't be such a surprise, but Alexis' whole body thrums with the knowledge. Even in spite of the beginning when they hardly knew each other, that phase in the middle that she doesn't like to think about where she resented Kate for hurting her father, for not giving in to a relationship she knows now that neither of them was ready for, Kate loves her. Has always loved her.

"Yeah. You were a pretty great kid, you know? And one of the first times I realised that your dad was more than the image he projected was when he talked about you." Kate smiles, shakes her head at the memory.

Alexis swallows, clutches at Kate's fingers where they still lie atop her knee. "Kate? I'm really glad we have you. And. . .I love you too."

Kate's arms are around Alexis' shoulders before the younger woman even knows what's happening, but she relaxes into it immediately. Beckett gives the best hugs, warm and soft and cradling her so tight that she feels like she's just exactly where she's supposed to be.

"Alexis, honey. Thank you. For accepting me into your family."

Alexis lets out a breath of laughter, pulls back to look at Kate. "No, no. Kate, you gave us this family. You made everything bigger, made it more. Dad and Gram and I get to have you, and Papa Jim and the kids. I never knew I needed it, but I'm so glad I have it now."

There are tears in Kate's eyes but she swallows them back, manages a tight smile. "Come on, Little Castle. Let's go check on those kids of mine. You want to help with bath time?"

"Yeah. I'd love to."

Kate slides her hand into Alexis' and pulls her to her feet, keeps a hold of her all the way back into the living room. Her father throws a questioning look to his wife but Kate shrugs it off, collars the little ones to herd them towards the stairs. Alexis stands in the middle of the living room for a moment, absolutely arrested by it, and then she sucks in a deep breath and heads for the stairs too.

* * *

**A/N: For those of you complaining about the lack of Jack so far, please just bear with me. It's harder to include him because he's at school, but I haven't forgotten about him and he's going to be heavily involved in several chapters next week. It all balances out in the end. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Friday, December 6****th**

* * *

Yesterday's snow scatters the dark slate of the sidewalk under Castle's shoes, his own footprints dwarfing the tiny echoes of both children's' feet as they trail along behind him. A little hand safely ensconced in each of his, Bea orbits the tether of his arm like a balloon as she strains to peer into every shop window, stroke every passing dog or offer a smile to even the hardiest of New Yorkers. Jack is quieter, stays closer to his side, but the vivid spark of delight in his eyes is hard to miss.

A people person like her mother, Bea is much more effervescent with it, uses her innate understanding of others to connect with them. Sometimes he wonders if she might have the whole city wrapped around her finger. Certainly she does her big brother; Castle can't recall Jack ever saying no to her.

"Daddy." She hums, turning her face up to him. Pointed chin and sharp cheekbones, she's like a pixie with her stripy hat tugged down low over her ears. "Where are we going?"

"We're Christmas shopping, baby girl. For Tío and Uncle Kevin. I need your guys' help to get them something really awesome, okay?"

He gets a grin in return, delight unravelling across her face. Jack glances up at him, his little face creased up into a frown. "Daddy, are you not getting them tickets for baseball?"

"Yeah, I will. But it's nice for them to have something to open, don't you think." Castle says, schools his face into mock seriousness. Immediately, his son echoes the sincerity of his words as she nods gravely at him.

Bea giggles at his side, coming back in to throw an arm around her brother's shoulders in an almost-hug. "Yes Daddy. We help?"

Castle drops a hand to the girl's shoulder and squeezes gently, steers her wide of an icy puddle that seems a little treacherous. "You guys can help, yeah. But you have to keep it a secret, okay?"

"I be sooo secret, Daddy. I not even tell _Mommy_."

She says it like it's the highest possible order of secrecy for her, to keep it from her mother. And, he supposes, it probably is. Bea and Kate share everything together, the little girl looking to her mother for her opinion on every tiny facet of her life.

"You can tell Mommy, sweet pea. Mommy can keep a secret even better than me. Isn't that right, buddy?" Castle says to his son. Last year, around the time of Bea's birthday, Kate drew their son into all of the plans and the secrecy and he delighted in the adrenaline of it.

Rick smirks as he spots the store a little up ahead that he wanted to visit. "This one, guys."

Bea follows his gaze and then she lights up, running a little way ahead. She falters as if she's come up against a wall and spins around, comes back for Jack's hand to tug him with her. Castle's son looks at him for permission and he grins, ruffles his little boy's hair. "Go ahead, buddy. Wait at the door for me, okay my man?"

The two of them dart off together and he watches, his heart bursting open with so much tenderness. When he reaches them, they each stretch a hand up to take one of his and lead him inside.

* * *

Kate's phone vibrates in her pocket and she startles hard, shakes herself a little to snap out of it. Daydreaming again, mulling over yesterday's conversation with Alexis and how much. . .lighter the young woman seemed, afterward. Clearly Kate should have had that talk a lot sooner.

Her stomach heavy with guilt, she tugs her phone free and laughs at the goofy picture her husband has for his caller ID. He changes it often, almost every time she leaves her phone unattended. In today's picture, he has one eyebrow arched towards his hairline and his tongue poking through the seam of his lips.

Swiping her thumb across the screen to answer the call, Kate sucks in a breath and tries to keep the wear of the day out of her voice. "Hi babe."

"Hi Mommy!" A little voice rings out, a whole lot higher pitched than she was expecting, and a quiet laugh bubbles up from her throat.

She leans back in her chair, arching her spine and then relaxing again, relishing the sudden flood of tension out of her muscles. "Hi beautiful girl. How are you?"

"Daddy and Jack and me did buy presents for Tío and Uncle Kevin." Her daughter sounds so completely delighted by this, and in the background Kate hears the steady rumble of her husband's amusement.

Kate glances across the precinct, offers a smile to her boys when they look up and meet her gaze. They send her a suspicious look, almost comically identical between the two of them, and she shrugs. "That's great, baby."

"Mommy are you soo busy now?" Her daughter asks, suddenly hesitant.

"Give me a second." Kate says into the phone, lifting it away from her ear to talk with the guys. "What do we have?"

"Nothing that can't wait an hour or so. Go." Ryan offers, grinning at her.

A couple years back, before Bea was even here, she felt so guilty every time she left her son, and then even more guilty if she took off for lunch or cut out early to make it in time to collect Jack from preschool. It's better now, easier, and when the boys offer to cover for her she doesn't find it so hard to say yes.

Sometimes she takes the bulk of the paperwork to let Ryan get home to his kids, let Esposito spend the evening with Lanie, and it helps to ease the guilt when she puts her own family first.

"I'm not busy at all, sweetheart. Can I talk to Daddy?" Kate murmurs to her daughter, standing up and shrugging into her coat. She winds a scarf around her neck and traps the phone between her ear and shoulder, nimble fingers busy at the ladder of buttons cutting her chest in two.

There's a moment of quiet, a rustling, and then her husband's voice floods across the line. Rich and full, like a balm, and Kate gives herself a moment to let her eyes slip closed and bask in it. "Hello, Mommy."

"Hey. I can come meet you guys for lunch. You want to do Remy's?"

Kate reaches the elevator and presses the call button, leans against the wall as she waits for Castle's response. "Let me ask our kids. Beanie Ella, Jackson, you want to meet Mommy at Remy's?"

Their children must nod, or offer some other affirmation, because Castle's coming back to her and his voice is thick with happiness. "They say yes. See you in twenty?"

"See you." Kate hums, hangs up before she steps on the elevator. The damn thing is so old that rust interferes with her cell reception; she would have lost him anyway. Her stomach calls out to her and she flushes, presses a palm to her belly to settle the angry sounds.

Soon. Food and her babies and her husband.

* * *

The kids spot their mother before Castle does and he huffs a breath as Bea slides off of his lap, using his guts as leverage. Charging towards the door, his wisp of a girl weaves through the forest of legs in her path and makes it in time to jump into Kate's arms, Jack following close behind her.

She must have seen her coming, because Beckett doesn't even falter as she scoops both of them up for a hug. Her arms fold around their children and she drops her forehead to meet their son's, murmuring tender words of love against the shell of his ear.

His wife strides through the sea of people crowding the counter and he smirks to watch it, how the other patrons fall back to let her pass. He sees a couple of admiring glances cast her way, but it no longer sends that flare of violent possessiveness through him.

There's no need to meet her in the middle, claim her with the hot press of his mouth. Not with his kids in her arms and a pale circle of skin at her ring finger. She comes to settle opposite him in the booth and he grins, braces his palms flat on the table so he can lift up and kiss her.

Bea makes a noise of discontent and he laughs, cards a hand through her hair. "Sorry baby. We won't be gross."

"Speak for yourself." Kate smirks, levels him with a look that sends heat coiling up his spine, has him crashing back against his seat. His wife passes their daughter over top of the table to him and he takes her, grateful for a distraction. Beckett curls her arms around Jack's stomach and keeps him close, bounces her knees to make him laugh.

Rick grits his teeth, steadfastly holds her gaze until she shakes her head at him and lets it drop. Thank God. He's not equipped to deal with a Kate who _tries_ to unravel him.

"Hungry?" He chokes out, clutches at the glass of ice water that sweats on the table in front of him and takes a slow sip.

Too late, he realises how she could use that against him. Her eyes darken and she opens her mouth, but their son squirms in her grip and it seems to jolt her, a reminder that this is definitely neither the place nor time for her to render him speechless.

"Starving." She grins, flicks three fingers at the waitress passing by their table. They've been coming here for so long that his wife doesn't bother to even glance at the menu anymore. He would have ordered for her if he'd been sure of what time she might show up.

Probably best that he didn't, regardless. Kate's not the kind of woman you order for, even if he does know her tastes as well as his own.

"Can I get a grilled cheese and some chicken nuggets for the little ones? You want milkshake, guys?" Kate nudges their son, momentarily distracts him from the picture he's scribbling all over.

"Uhuh." Their daughter smiles up at her mother, catches the stern look Kate sends and withers just a little. "Please."

"Jackson?" She murmurs against the crown of his head, snuggling him close.

"Yes please, Mommy."

"Two strawberry milkshakes, please. Castle?" Kate quirks an eyebrow at him, glances at the waitress.

Right, yes. Ordering. That's what he should be doing, not staring at his wife. He meets their waitress' eyes, offers her his most charming smile. "Cheeseburger for me, thanks. And chocolate milkshake."

The waitress repeats their order back to them and Kate nods her affirmation, thanks the girl with so much sincerity it seems to shock her. That's just Kate, though. Feels everything so deeply, and when she lets it show it does tend to kind of. . .sock you in the gut.

"Guys, tell Mommy what we did today." Castle prompts his kids, dropping a kiss to the top of Bea's head where she sits next to him in the booth and pushing his toes to the stretch of Jack's shin underneath the table.

Turning vibrant eyes up to his mother, Jack worms his way a little closer and takes Kate's hand. He traces the pale skin where knuckle meets hand, furrows his brows at Beckett. "Where's your ring?"

"Oh. In my pocket." Kate fishes it out, hands it to their son. "You want to put it on for me?"

Castle opens his mouth to protest, then thinks better of it and slams his jaw closed again. _He_ wants to put it on her. But then, his son seems so delighted at the prospect that he can't bring himself to interrupt. Jack slides the ring past his mother's knuckle and presses a sloppy kiss just above it, reaches both arms up to hug Kate.

"Why you not wearing it at your work, Momma?" Bea asks, wriggling closer into Castle's side as if to bask in the heat he gives out.

Good question, kid. Castle turns expectant eyes to his wife and she flushes, doesn't quite manage to return his gaze. "We were on a takedown this morning. I don't want to lose it, or scratch it. So I had it safe in my pocket."

Castle reaches for her hand and slides his fingers between hers, squeezing just hard enough that she startles. "I would buy you another, you know. If something did happen."

"I don't want another. I want mine." She says quietly, and with such conviction that he can't do anything but nod, all of his words gone in the face of how fiercely she loves him.

Bea and Jack turn back to their colouring books, already bored with the serious conversation their parents are having, so Castle seizes the opportunity with both hands and slides out of his seat, comes around to sit at his son's other side.

Such a tiny thing that he fits comfortably in the space between his parents' bodies, and Rick leans over the top of his head to kiss his wife. He keeps it gentle, soft, well aware that they're in Remy's and the likelihood of someone she knows spotting them is high.

The touch of their mouths falls apart when Kate cracks open on a grin, lifting a hand to settle against his cheek. Her eyes slide open slowly and she nuzzles his cheek, her other hand falling to cradle their son's skull. "Love you."

Before he can say it back, the waitress is coming back with their order. But he spends the rest of the meal eating with one hand and with the other he traces the inseam at Kate's thigh, that one point of contact doing just as much to show her his heart as any of his words could.


	7. Chapter 7

**Saturday, December 7th**

* * *

"Good morning, children." Castle says, his voice still rough and gravelly with sleep. On the couch, his kids are curled up with Snicket in between them, Bea's head pillowed against the dog's stomach. Neither his children nor his dog so much as offers him a glance.

They're totally transfixed by the morning cartoons, so he figures that Kate isn't making breakfast like he first assumed. No way she'd let them get so totally absorbed. Flicking his gaze to the screen, Rick lets himself get momentarily absorbed in the cartoon and then moves to stand in front of the screen.

"Where's Mommy?"

Jack is the first to break, his sister about to fall right onto the floor as she stretches to see around the bulk of her father's body. His son meets Castle's eyes, seems to realise that the faster his question is answered, the faster they can have their cartoons back.

"She went to run, I think. She had on the shoes." Jack's attention leaches slowly away from his father and then snaps back, like a rubber band stretched and suddenly let go. "Oh, Daddy! She said there are waffles keeping warm but we can't have any until you're awake."

Castle raises an eyebrow at his son and moves for the kitchen, Snicket dropping his long body to the floor and trailing Rick across the room at the prospect of food. "I'm awake. Who's hungry?"

"Me, me!" Bea shrieks, apparently tugged away from her cartoons in much the same way as the dog. Deciding not to dwell too heavily on that, Castle pulls the waffles out of the oven and plates them up, hands a portion to each of his kids.

His daughter clambers up onto the barstool and bats her eyes at him, her chin cradled in the cup of her hands. Her hair flops into her eyes and she huffs; Rick snags a barrette from the little bowl his wife keeps stocked on the counter and secures his daughter's bangs back from her face.

"Daddy, since it is the weekend. . .can we do calendars before breakfast?"

She looks so hopefully angelic that Castle almost doesn't have the heart to say no, but- "Let's wait for Mommy, hmm? Isn't everything more fun with Mommy here too?"

"Mm'kay." Bea shrugs, busies herself adding sugar and lemon to her waffles. Castle wrinkles his nose at her and grabs the chocolate syrup, adds a liberal amount to his son's plate before he fixes on his own. Lemon and sugar, pfft. Another thing that Bea has picked up from Kate, whether genetically or just in imitation.

As if conjured by his thoughts, the door swings open and his wife stands in the threshold. The enormous window at the end of the hallway splashes light down the corridor and Kate bathes in it, her skin slick with sweat and calling out to his mouth.

"You guys didn't wait for me?" She says, mock-affronted, and both kids hurry to go and console her. It still amazes him that she lets them touch even when she's sweaty and hot and a little wiped out from her run. She won't carry them, often can't even stomach a hug, but little hands smearing sugar or jelly or chocolate all over her as they hasten to welcome her home? Apparently not a problem.

Castle rounds the counter and strides over to his family, still bubbling up from the doorway. He tugs his wife further inside the loft, the kids orbiting her ankles, and then he can shut the door before the daft dog sees fit to escape or something equally inconvenient.

"Okay guys. Let Mommy go shower. Finish your breakfast. We have a lot to do today."

Kate meets his eyes, offers him an imperceptible nod as she peels their son away from her ankle and strides toward the bedroom. They talked it through last night, satiated and loose where they curled together in the sheets. What today looks like, the traditions they want to cement for their kids.

There are things he used to do with Alexis that he wants to carry on, things that Kate did with her own parents that she'd like to revisit. In the velvet darkness of their bedroom, she spun stories that painted in his mind the vivid pictures of his wife as a tiny wisp of a girl, adorable and fearless and so much like their own daughter.

Jim Beckett marvels over the similarity, comments on it whenever he spends any length of time with his granddaughter. And, thinking of Jim, Castle scribbles a reminder on the kitchen whiteboard. It would be good for the kids to see him, for Kate to see her father.

_Call Papa_, his note says, and Jack reads it back to him hesitantly, almost trembling with pride when he sees his father's nod of affirmation.

"Papa!" Jack splutters around a mouthful of his breakfast, looks around as if he expects his grandfather to materialise at the mention of his name. Well, it did work for his mother just now.

Castle waits for his son to finish his last mouthful before he takes the plate, stacks all three in the dishwasher. He shuts the thing with a hip and glances towards the bedroom, listens intently for the sound of the shower still running. "I'm going to call Papa and see if he wants to come to dinner tomorrow. But it's a surprise for Mommy, okay? Don't tell her."

He gets an earnest nod from both of the kids and scrubs the note off of the board, considers adding one to his phone before he thinks better of it. Not that his wife checks up on him or anything like that, but she knows his password and sometimes she'll use his instead if it's to hand.

Doesn't bother him. He has nothing to hide. Not from Kate. Except, yeah, this one thing. But it's a surprise, not really a secret.

The bedroom door opens and his wife steps through, clad in jeans and the damp ends of her hair soaking through the rich berry colour of her sweater to leave dark patches at her collar bones. She grins at the three of them and comes to stand with Rick in the kitchen, looping her arms low around his waist and stretching up to meet his mouth.

"Okay, Mommy's dressed. You guys run and get dressed too, okay?" He says to the kids, nods towards the stairs.

Jack shoots him a sly look on his way upstairs, a smirk just flirting at the corners of his mouth. "You should get dressed too, Daddy."

Uhuh, he will. Just as soon as he's done saying good morning to his wife.

* * *

It's late, by the time they get all of the boxes away. The kids have already travelled the whole spectrum from deliriously excited to irritable and now they're both flagging.

In the kitchen, Castle's preparing hot chocolate for everyone, so Kate takes the opportunity to take her kids' hands and tug them over to the living room with her. "This is what I used to do when I was a little girl."

"When you was me?" Bea murmurs, eyelids dragging so her lashes sweep her cheeks like shadows. She stretches her arms up for Kate to carry her, but instead Beckett sinks down to the floor and gathers them both against her chest. Lying right back, she slides along the floor a little way until her head almost touches the trunk of the tree.

Both kids snuggle a little closer against her and Kate smiles, presses a kiss to each little forehead and curls an arm around each narrow waist. "Open your eyes."

"Oh, Mommy, wow." Jack says right against her ear, his voice soft and pliant with amazement. Above their heads, the tree's green fingers branch out and the lights Castle wound around it adorn the gnarled fingers like rings, brilliant gems of warm light.

Bea touches Kate's skin, her cheek and then her nose, travelling up to her forehead. The lights must be smoothing over the planes of her face then, splashes of colour that her baby girl dips her fingertips into. "Don't you think it's pretty?"

"_You_ are pretty, Momma." Bea says, so much conviction to it that Kate's cheeks flame and she buries her face in the warmth of her daughter's neck.

The girl's been a little strange today, her excitement peaking so high and for so long that for most of the afternoon Kate has been dreading the inevitable crash. Bea had run from the low table with the train set to the gingerbread house to the tinsel that winds around the railing on the stairs, never quite able to tether herself to one spot.

Every so often, she'd open her mouth as if to say something and then wither under a hard look from her father. Kate can't help but wonder what that's all about, but never mind. She'll find out eventually, either from her baby girl or from her husband.

Castle loves secrets, prides himself on his ability to surprise her, but- heh, yeah. . .she's pretty good at surprising him too.

Heavy footfalls move steadily towards them and Kate grins, closes her eyes and waits for the inevitable warmth of the man she loves at her side. Castle clambers half underneath the tree and gathers Jack against his chest so he can lie flush with Kate's side, his mouth coming hot against her temple.

"Hi, gorgeous. This a tradition?"

Kate turns a little, lifts her daughter to let Bea pillow her little body on her mother's chest. "First night with the tree, yeah. It was always my favourite."

"You're my favourite." Castle grins, pleased with himself for taking that opening. And she can't even roll her eyes or call him a sap, none of it.

The loft spreads its glow over their little patch of the city and Kate thinks of the people in the street below, glancing up at their windows and seeing the spill of light and thinking about the happy family within. When she was younger and still had to hold her daddy's hand in the street, she would always tug him to a stop so she could stare longer at the windows, the glance into other people's lives that they offered.

Now, her life is like the pictures she drew in her mind. Especially at this moment with her kids sleepy and vulnerable and looking to their parents for warmth and safety. Her husband by her side for all of it, filling them all up with so much love that it spills over as if from a too-small cup, offered up like a gift to everyone they care for.

"Castle? I'm really glad we waited."

Sometimes she can't help but think about what could have happened if she'd caved in and kissed him that first case. No matter what he told her, she has no doubt that she would have been another notch in his bedpost back then. It took years of him proving himself over and over, showing her time and time again that he cared, before she could even imagine a life with him.

Of course she regrets the hurt they caused each other, but a part of her is grateful for it. It got them here, and here is such a beautifully perfect place that she wouldn't change a moment of the pathway that led them to it.

She's being maudlin, she knows. And apparently so does Castle, because he's coming in to press his mouth to hers, his tongue just touching at the seam of her lips. Kate casts her eyes down and sees the dramatic lift and fall of both kids' chests. Satisfied that they're asleep, she opens up for her husband and lets him take anything he wants.

He gave her all of it. It's his to take back. Castle's mouth breaks away from hers and he gathers both kids into his arms, moves slowly to his feet. "You stay right here. I want to see the reflection of the lights in your eyes while we make love."


	8. Chapter 8

**Sunday, December 8****th**

* * *

They wake up a little later than they meant to, and Castle seems flustered about it. He declines her softly spoken offer to join her in the shower, hops in after her instead. It's maybe the fastest shower she's ever seen him take and Kate stands dumbstruck in the bathroom doorway, watching him scrub shampoo into his chest and soap in his hair.

Huh, okay. Weird.

Shrugging at her ridiculous husband, Kate goes in search of her kids. Her son is playing quietly on his bedroom floor, the knights from his castle scattered around him, and he grins when he catches sight of his mother. "Mommy, you want to play with me?"

"Let me check on your sister, baby. I'll be right back."

Kate pokes her head around Bea's door and sees the girl sacked out, somehow on top of the sheets. The toy bunny Alexis bought when Bea was born sends Kate a pleading glance, its ear caught firmly in her daughter's mouth, and she sighs at herself.

Ridiculous, to feel sorry for a stuffed piece of cloth with eyes stitched on. Kate closes the door softly and moves back through to Jack's room, settles cross-legged opposite her little boy. "What's happening?"

"This is the bad one." Jack gestures to a knight suited up in black armour, his face obscured by the obsidian of his helmet. This one has been the hero plenty of times, no prejudice in the land of her son's make believe. Jack thrusts a green, scaly creature into her hands and beams at her. "This is a friendly dragon. Gonna blast so much fire, Mommy. Until there's no more bad."

Huh, okay. Friendly dragon. Sure, why not?

* * *

Castle follows the quiet murmur of his wife's voice down the hall and pushes open the door to his son's room, sees the two of them playing together. His heart soars in his chest as he watches the scene in front of him unfold, Kate throwing herself completely into the story their son weaves.

He hates to have to do it, but- "Kate, love? Would you get the kids up and dressed?"

She doesn't startle – of course not, she always knows he's there – just drags her gaze slowly upward from his feet to his eyes. "Castle, what's wrong?"

His wife gets to her feet and comes to join him in the doorway, brushing a gentle kiss to the smooth underside of his jaw. Rick swallows, settles his palms at the curve of her waist. "Nothing."

"I don't believe you."

"Just- wanted to do family lunch today. Don't want to waste the day." He shrugs, takes a faltering step back at the withering glare she levels on him.

"You think I'm wasting the day, playing with our son?"

Maybe backing off isn't the right move. Yeah, who is he kidding? This is Kate Beckett. Easiest way to apologise is the touch of his mouth.

Castle tugs her up close against him and plunders her mouth, worships at the font of her lips and delights in the soft little mewl that spills out of her when he moves his tongue a certain way. "I'm in love with you, Kate Castle. Let me make lunch."

"Okay." She hums, her body lifting up into his a moment before she drops back to flat feet. "But I'm not hurrying to wake the baby."

"Probably best." Castle shrugs, presses a last kiss to his wife's soft, open mouth. Kate's fingers curl inside of his collar and she lifts an eyebrow but says nothing.

Yes, okay. Button down on a Sunday is unusual for him. Usually he tugs on a well-worn sweater and curls on the couch with the kids. But today is about doing something good for his wife, drawing her father into their traditions.

When Castle spoke with Jim yesterday, Kate upstairs putting the kids to bed, his father-in-law had confirmed that he'd be going up to the cabin for much of the holidays. Rick would love for Jim to spend the day itself with them, but it still stings to do Christmas without Johanna.

Maybe Jack and Bea can lure him out of hiding, maybe not. The uncertainty doesn't sit well with Kate, hence why he wants to have Jim for dinner today so his wife can at least spend some time with her father.

"You need any help?" She hums, casting her eyes back to their son to make sure Castle knows she's only offering out of politeness, that she'd much rather spend this time with their little boy.

He gives her a smile for her efforts, kisses her forehead. "No, I got it. You play with Jack."

* * *

To say Kate is surprised when her father shows up at the door would be an understatement. Bea answers, and her delighted shriek carries across the loft to where Kate is serving up mashed potatoes. Her gaze snaps up and she meets her father's eyes, feels her whole face opening out on a grin.

"Dad, what are you doing here?" She laughs, wiping her hands off on the apron around her waist and coming to intercept her father, kiss his cheek.

Her dad laughs, shoots a look at Castle that tells Kate the answer before he even speaks. "Rick invited me. Didn't want me to miss out on the festivities."

He's laughing as he says it, but it sends a jolt of gratitude through Kate's body. Her husband is truly amazing, considerate and kind and striving to make her happy. Later, she'll have to make sure that he knows he doesn't need to try so hard. Just him being here, the gorgeous kids he gave her, fills her with more joy than she knows what to do with.

"Jim, a drink?" Castle calls out, swats their daughter's hand away from the bowl of carrots at the counter. Bea, dramatic as always, pretends that she's lost her balance and sways precariously atop the barstool. Kate has to grit her teeth so as not to run for the girl and make her sit properly.

"You guys have any lemonade?"

"Sure." Rick grins, pouring Jim a glass and handing it over. Kate's father barely has time to take a sip before Jack is tugging on the leg of his pants, trying to pull him towards the stairs.

"Papa, will you come and see my toys?" Jack says, casts a surreptitious glance over at his mother as if waiting for permission. Kate shrugs and her son grins, reaches for his sister's hand. "And Bea can show you hers too."

Her father disappears upstairs with both children and Kate rounds the counter, comes to circle her husband's waist and bury her head in the curve of his neck. "This is why you were so stressed this morning?"

"Mm. Even after a marriage and two kids, he still scares me."

Kate laughs, arches up to press her mouth against Castle's. In gratitude and supplication both. "He's more easy going than you give him credit for, you know."

"I know. Honestly, Kate? I was more concerned with doing this for you." Rick shrugs like it's nothing and Kate's heart lurches, her arms coming up to loop at his neck instead.

Their kiss is tender, a little hesitant since the kids and her father could come back downstairs any moment. Castle's fingers flex at her waist, desperate to slip lower, and Kate runs her fingertips through the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, opens for the touch of his tongue.

He lets her go at the sound of footsteps on the stairs but Kate stays, stretches to rest her forehead to his. "Rick? Thank you. I love you."

"Love you too, Mrs Castle." He grins, the name even now filling him with so much joy, and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek.

They set the food out in the centre of the table, gesturing for the kids and her father to sit down as they lay out the last of it. A roast chicken, and sure it's not quite on par with Christmas dinner, but she sees what Castle's doing. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise her if he tried to open gifts or something equally ridiculous later.

There's no annoyance, no irritation. Her skin feels ripe to burst with the depth of love she feels for him, the rich and effervescent joy that kisses her bones. Her father sees it, keeps sending her these little glances from over top of his glass and Kate just shrugs back.

Once everyone has food on their plates, Kate figures that Castle can manage to eat with one hand and laces her fingers through his other, brings it up to her mouth to press a line of kisses to his knuckles before she rests their joined hands against the table top.

Both kids are scowling at her, as ever disgusted by any affection between their parents, but Kate pokes her tongue out at them and they giggle. Bea's plate seems to consist mostly of mashed potatoes and carrots drowning in gravy, and maybe another day Kate would encourage her to get some chicken, more vegetables.

But not right now. It's too good to have her father here; she won't spoil it by picking a fight with her little girl. Instead, Kate turns to Jim and grins, swallows her mouthful before she speaks. "They get any snow up at the cabin yet, Dad?"

"Some, yeah. More than here. You guys gonna come up and make a snowman?" He grins. The kids open their mouths like they're going to start pleading and Kate casts a helpless glance to her husband, so very grateful when he understands.

"Since Kate has Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off from work it might be difficult for her to get any more time off for us to come up to the cabin. But maybe we could do New Years?"

Kate shrugs, her mouth turning down at the corners a moment. "I can ask Gates."

"Cap will say yes." Bea says decisively, frowning in confusion when the adults laugh at her. "What's funny?"

"Baby, Cap says yes to you all the time. But it's different when I ask for time off from work and things like that. She can't say yes all the time. Otherwise, everyone would ask and then Cap would have no one to solve any crimes."

Kate's explanation seems to assuage the girl and she nods, shoves more food into her mouth. The touch of tiny fingers at her thigh startles Kate and she glances over at her son, sees him watching her intently. "Mommy, you won't have to be at work on Christmas?"

"No, I won't. Tío is going to work on Christmas this year. And Uncle Kevin will do next year." Kate murmurs to her son, bending her head to get a little closer to him.

"Because you worked on Christmas last year, right Mommy?" Jack says, reaching up as if to draw Kate down for a hug and then thinking better of it, climbing into his mother's lap instead.

Beckett lets go of Castle's hand to curl her arm around her son, keep him close against her. Jack's head falls heavy at her shoulder, her little boy clingy as ever. It does worry her sometimes, how desperately he seems to need her. Especially compared to his sister.

According to Castle he doesn't pine for her when she's not here, seems just as happy as when she is. But it hurts him every time she does have to leave and a piece of her heart seems to break off and splinter inside of her chest at the look on his face.

"I'll be right here, my sweet boy. I promise."

Kate makes a mental note to thank Javier properly later. It's thanks to him that she can make a promise to her son at all. She and Kevin do tend to lean on him a little heavily, since he doesn't have any kids to make it home to, but he's never seemed to mind.

Even so, they'll have to make sure Esposito gets an especially fantastic gift this year.


	9. Chapter 9

**Monday, December 9****th**

* * *

"Hey Beanie Ella." Castle says, resting his forearms against the kitchen island to lean in close as she finishes up her cereal. "You wanna go see Lex and Harry today?"

"Oh, yes Daddy." His little girl beams at him around a mouthful of Cookie Crisp, a pale line of milk escaping the seam of her lips and freefalling to the precipice of her jaw.

Rick snags a washcloth from the sink and wipes her mouth, presses a smacking kiss to her forehead. "I said we'd meet them for lunch."

"Just you and me?"

"Just you and me." Castle grins, comes around the counter to curl an arm at his daughter's waist and scoop her up. He drapes her over his shoulder and holds on tight to her ankles, strides over to the couch with her torso bouncing against his back.

She loves when he carries her upside down, will often beg him to do it for so long that the blood rushing to her head makes her dizzy. The first – and only – time Kate caught their daughter falling down because of it, Castle got reamed out. So now they keep it for when Mom's not around, Bea having been sworn to secrecy.

"Daddy Daddy, are Lex and Eli and Harry going to stay with us for Christmas like Gram and maybe Papa?" Bea gasps out, so Castle drops her down onto the couch and comes to sit next to her, gathering up against his side instead.

He presses noisy kisses to her hair, blows raspberries in the warm skin at her neck until she shrieks. "I don't know, sweet girl. We'll have to ask her nicely."

"I want to have all everyone for Christmas, Daddy. Even we can have Mommy this year."

She's grinning, but it does sting. It was hard on them all last year, neither child really old enough to understand why Mommy had to work. Castle did his best to inject them with joy, keep them distracted, but her absence was a gaping hole they all had to tread carefully so as not to fall right into.

"We'll make sure that everyone knows they're welcome, Bea. The rest is up to them. But yes, we'll definitely have Mommy this year." He offers to his daughter, gets a moment of quiet in return.

Rare for her, and so he knows an admission is coming. "Daddy? I love Mommy so much like all of the stars."

"You love her as much as there are stars in the sky?"

"Yes." Bea grins, looks so pleased with him for having understood. She presses a slobbery kiss to his cheek and makes as if she's going to climb down from the couch so he grabs for her, hauls her into his lap.

Castle pulls his phone from his pocket and dials his wife, puts her on speaker. "Kate, our daughter has something to tell you."

"Mommy I love you so much like all the stars." Bea says, glances up to her father and grins. So proud of herself, his funny little girl.

On the line, there's a moment of quiet where he imagines his wife is trying to collect herself and then she speaks, voice a little softer than usual but ripe with joy. "Thank you, beautiful girl. I love you so much, too."

Bea struggles to get down, apparently content with the short conversation, and this time Castle lets her. He wants a moment alone with his wife, even if she is across the city. "Figured that's something you should hear."

"She said that spontaneously?" Kate asks, a little more timid than he'd like. Sure, she found her footing pretty quickly, is a wonderful mom to their kids. He just wishes she didn't doubt herself so much.

"Yeah, she did. Okay, we're gonna do crafts and then meet Alexis for lunch. Anything you'd like for dinner?" He grins, stands up from the couch to head for the refrigerator and see what they have to offer.

Over the phone line, Kate laughs at him, but she does at least answer. "I don't know, something wholesome? We were canvassing early this morning and I'm still frozen. Give me something hearty, Mr Castle."

"Can do. See you tonight, love you." He smiles into his phone like a sap, his eyes fluttering closed as he pictures her face. So gorgeous, especially when she's smiling just for him.

"Love you too. See you." Kate says, and hangs up so he doesn't have to.

* * *

When Alexis sees her father and sister, she lifts her free hand in acknowledgement and flutters her fingers at them in a wave. Her other is curled underneath her son as he feeds, the little booth tucked away in the back of the restaurant offering all the privacy she needs.

Her father slides into the booth opposite her and gathers Bea into his lap, offers his youngest daughter a colouring book. "Hi honey." He says to Alexis. The creases at the corners of his eyes when he grins are a little deeper than she remembers from her childhood, but no less comforting.

Harry finishes feeding and lets out a long sigh, the sound of his mother's laughter making him startle and his eyes fly open. Alexis fastens her shirt and hands her son over to his grandfather. Once her hands are free she can ruffle her sister's hair, share a silly grin with the little girl.

"Hey guys. How was your morning?"

"We did crafts!" Bea shrieks, a smudge of blue paint that her father must have missed peeking out from behind her ear when she turns her head to look at him.

Alexis grins, casts her eyes over her son to see him propped up against his grandfather's chest, facing outwards with a wide palm spanning his stomach. "Wow, awesome. What kinds of crafts?"

"Secret ones." Bea stage-whispers, glancing around as if she expects some of the diner's other patrons to be listening as intently as Alexis herself is.

Christmas cards, then. Alexis remembers that, spending a whole day with her father drawing and painting and cutting out snowflakes shapes to make cards for everyone they knew. "Those are the best kind, for sure."

"You ordered?" Her father says, his mouth brushing the top of Harry's head.

Alexis reaches for the menu, holds it open on the table facing him. "No, but I know what I want. Pizza for the munchkin?"

"Yes please Lex." Bea grins slyly, knows her father won't resist since she asked so nicely. Mm-hmm, the girl is all Beckett.

Speaking of. "Kate at work?"

"Mommy is catching all the bad guys." Bea says seriously, levels her sister with an intense look. The kids have never been kept in the dark about what it is their mother does, although Alexis knows that both her father and Detective Beckett strive to keep the grizzly details out of their children's lives.

As far as Jack and Bea are concerned, their mother fights the bad guys and she wins every time and she'll always make it home in one piece with another awesome story to tell.

"Yeah, working. Easy case though, seems like. I don't think she'll be late home or anything." Castle shrugs, closes the menu and turns the baby in his arms so he can press his nose against Harry's. "Uh-huh, yeah. Your gram keeps her promises."

Alexis bites her lip to suppress the shudder that runs through her, can't quite meet her father's eyes. It's just. . .too weird to think of Kate as a grandmother when her own kids are still so tiny. When Alexis can still so clearly picture what she looked like pregnant, how radiant she was.

"Sorry, pumpkin." Her father laughs, apparently aware of her discomfort.

Reaching out to take her own son back, Alexis bounces him in her lap until she gets the bubble of his laughter in reward, presses a smacking kiss to his cheek. "We'll just stick with Kate for now, hmm? Let's not confuse poor little Beanie."

"What about when he's old enough to need a name for her? And his aunt and uncle?" Her father wriggles his eyebrows, curls an arm around Bea's neck to tug her in for a kiss. She wrinkles her little nose and pushes at his cheeks, busies herself with her colouring book.

Alexis sighs and straps her son into the carry seat in the booth next to her, gives him a couple of toys to keep him entertained. It's something that's been plaguing her ever since she got pregnant. Their family is unusual. Sure, it works for them, but she's not blind to how it looks from the outside.

Neither is Detective Beckett; the comments about her being arm candy, about Alexis' father having finally landed his muse, still sting. "I'm gonna talk to Kate about it, I think. See what she says."

"Yeah, do that. Talk to Kate." Her father grins, the subtext of her statement clear to him. Alexis feels comfortable enough to ask Kate about it, is no longer so afraid of upsetting the older woman.

There's no shame in this, their family, her father's third marriage. How could there be, when he loves them all so much? For a long time it felt like he was the epicentre around which they orbited, Alexis with her husband and son clustered together and only occasionally glancing off of Kate and her own children.

Now though, she sees that it's not really that way at all. Kate loves her, she loves Kate back. They're working at it. "I have a Christmas party at work I need a dress for. Do you think she'd go shopping with me?"

"Sure, she'd love that. I think she needs to pick one up for the precinct party too, so yeah. Why, you trust her taste more than mine?"

Alexis rolls her eyes at that, pushes her toes against her father's shin under the table. "Yeah. Kate's taste is amazing. Honestly? Her clothes are perfect and I've been jealous since I was fifteen."

She earns a laugh for that, hearty enough that it lures their server over to the table. Alexis sits back and lets her father order for them all, fascinated by the easy charm he exudes with strangers. It's always been that way. She can't remember a time he didn't have the whole world wrapped around his finger.

Until Detective Beckett, and it's one of the things Alexis first liked about Kate. She never put up with any of her father's crap, remoulded him into the more serious, responsible guy that Alexis only really got glimpses of before. When their server leaves, Alexis meets her father's eyes as she drops a hand to cradle her son's head, the soft brush of his hair against her palm still surprising her every time with how right it feels.

"Hey Dad? I'm really glad we got here. It was good, with just me and you. But now there's Kate and the kids and it's. . .so much better."

"Now there's Kate." Her father agrees, his whole face opening out on that smile Alexis loves so much.

Bea slides out of the booth and comes around the other side, crawls in with her sister. She nuzzles her way under Alexis' arm and presses her cheek to her older sister's chest, opens up the colouring book in front of them. "Colour with me, Lexis. Please."

"Sure baby, I'll colour with you. What are we colouring?"

"Them sharks for Papa. He can put it on the fridge." Bea grins, her mouth stretching wider still when she gets a laugh from her father.

Alexis can't help but remember how that felt, that easy grin, how amazing it was to be the centre of his whole world, the best reason he had to smile. And so what if she's not his baby girl anymore? Doesn't matter. It's better this way.

Maybe tonight she'll call Kate. Arrange a shopping date, yes, but also thank her. Alexis still isn't convinced that Kate knows just how much she and her father owe the detective. Glancing down at her son, Alexis smiles softly and smoothes her thumb over his cheek.

Yes. They have Kate to thank for this wonderful life.


	10. Chapter 10

**Tuesday, December 10****th**

* * *

It's a writing day and the loft is quiet, the stillness a little disconcerting after the chaos of breakfast. Controlled, barely, by his wife as she herded their kids around, so now it just feels wrong to not hear their shrieks or the soothing hum of Kate's voice.

In front of him on the desk, his laptop curser flashes indignantly at him and he groans, rereads the last few paragraphs he wrote from between the splay of his fingers. He left it mid-sentence, and he hates trying to get back into it after that happens.

With two kids under six running around the house, even when inspiration strikes it's hard to carve out enough time to make it to a good stopping place. Kate does her best to keep them busy, ushers them away from the study every time they come near, but they love him. They love their daddy, and so whenever they want to show him something or have him join in their new game, he can't seem to say no.

Even when they're not here he's so distracted by thoughts of them that he can't remember what it was that Nikki Heat was doing. Something badass, no doubt.

His publisher won't let Nikki get pregnant, and if he's honest he has to admit that he knows it would be a bad idea. Only, he loves Kate. He loves Kate as a mom, soft and pliant and in love with her children, and whenever he sits down in his desk chair, hears the indignant creak of the old leather under his weight, that's all he really wants to write.

His phone vibrates hard against the desk and his attention snaps to it, a silent prayer of thanks sent up to whoever might be listening when he sees the caller ID. "Hi babe."

"Hey. We got a body. You in?" His wife says on the other end of the line, her voice light and amused with him. In love with him.

Castle almost trips over the leg of his chair in his haste to get to the closet and pull on shoes, a coat. "Oh yes, I'm in. Text me the address?"

"Of course. Meet you there."

She hangs up on him and he doesn't even _care_ because they have a case and he gets to go to the precinct and run theory with his wife, lean at her side against the desk and stare at the murder board until the evidence coagulates into a story that makes sense.

To him, if not always to her.

His cell phone vibrates in his hand with Kate's text and he startles, thumbs it open and scans the address. Okay, he'll take a cab. First though, a scarf and their coffee.

She will have already had one this morning, maybe two, but it's the one piece of their story he won't ever let go of. He brings coffee. To the precinct and the crime scenes and to her in bed in the morning when she's trying to drag herself out.

Coffee is the way he says _I love you, I'm here_, and he never wants her to doubt that.

* * *

Kate hears her husband approaching before she sees him, his quiet exclamation of surprise at the state of the victim's front door. Definitely signs of forced entry here, the whole place screams of a fight. And their victim is young, slight, a pretty blonde thing with something ethereal about her.

She has to wonder just who killed her that she was able to put up a fight against for long enough to trash half the apartment. Rick will have a theory about it within the hour, she knows. It's why she never even hesitated to call him when they got to the scene.

There's some guilt there, for interrupting his writing, but mostly she's just excited to get to share this case with him. And anyway, he managed to write seven books about Nikki before Jack was born and he stopped showing up at the precinct. He's well practiced at the art of balancing the two.

"Good morning, Detective." He smiles just for her, hands her the to-go cup with a carefully calculated brush of his fingers to the hum of her pulse in her wrist. The cold makes her veins stark, a roadmap of vibrant blue that leads to the crook of her elbow, and his fingertips traverse the lines for just a moment.

Kate takes a slow sip of her coffee and lets her eyes flutter closed, imagines the heat of the liquid flooding into all the gaps between her bones, the hollow places, making them loose and good again. "Morning. Kids get to school okay?"

"Yeah, fine. What do we have?"

It's not that he doesn't want to talk about their kids with her, she knows that. The prospect of a crime scene is just so rare a commodity to him now that it's all he can focus on, all the intensity of his incredible brain channelled into figuring it out.

"Hannah Watkin, twenty three. Neighbour passing by this morning noticed the state of the door and came inside, found her like this." Beckett gestures to the body, their victim sprawled backward over the coffee table with vivid, purpling finger marks at her throat.

Castle notices, of course, turns a raised eyebrow to her. "She was choked?"

"We're pretty sure, yeah. Lanie's gonna run a tox screen just in case, but it does look like strangulation's our COD." Beckett says, comes to kneel at her husband's side as he takes a closer look at their victim.

Something respectful about it, the way he always takes the time to study the face, see the person they once were behind the brutality of their murder. It's been that way with him almost from the start, was one of the many reasons she let him carry on shadowing her.

"We got anything else?"

Beckett gets to her feet again, has to stifle the urge to kiss him when he stands up straight and his body is just so deliciously near to her own, the wall of his chest so inviting. She wants him, badly. But right now they have a job to do, a killer to find. It can wait.

"Only that she was very quiet, kept to herself mostly. Her girlfriend's going to meet us at the precinct. Parents are gone, no other family that we're aware of." Kate says, flipping through the notes she scrawled down from what little information Ryan was able to give her.

Castle nods, does a three-sixty spin to get a good look at the whole of the room. "Whoever did this was strong. And pissed off, too, to throw her around so much."

"CSU are sweeping for prints and we have uniforms canvasing for anyone who might have seen or heard something unusual. Espo and Ryan are combing through her details, trying to see if there's anything she's involved in that might have gotten her killed."

"What about us?" He grins, sips at his coffee. Kate laughs too even as she shivers hard, the battered front door offering the apartment no resistance from the bitterness outside.

Shrugging, Beckett tugs on his hand and steps carefully through the mess towards the hallway. "We head back to the precinct, speak with the girlfriend."

* * *

Kate starts removing the pieces of their victim's timeline from the board one by one, drops them into the box that Castle holds out for her. She scrubs the dry erase marker off of the board as well, leaves the pristine expanse of white. The case is done, finished, and she owes it to their victim to honour her this way.

Sometimes, the easy ones are worse.

Their victim's long-time girlfriend, Alice, broke down when confronted with the facts of the scene. Told Kate that her brother Todd was mentally ill, had been for as long as she could remember. He hadn't known about Hannah and Alice's relationship, the latter too scared of her brother's reaction to tell him.

And when he found out, Todd had gone right over to the apartment they shared together while Alice was at work, and strangled the woman she loved. The bitterness, the great well of pointlessness rises up in her throat and Kate has to swallow hard, look to Castle for reassurance.

"I don't know who I feel most sorry for." Her husband says, clutches at her fingers.

When they got Todd in the box, he confessed almost immediately. Said he didn't know what he was doing until afterwards when he saw the body, that he didn't know he even had it in him. Yeah, to say that Beckett was surprised to see their killer's physical condition would be an understatement.

Todd is wiry, thin, a shadow of a man. Like the shame of his illness makes him want to retreat inside of himself, disappear entirely. It's not really all that surprising that Hannah was able to fight back at first, that in the struggle for her life she tore down half the apartment around her.

The door, Alice told them, was actually a hate attack a couple days before that they just hadn't ever gotten around to fixing.

"Castle, I really need an injection of Christmas spirit right about now." Kate murmurs to him, steps in a little closer.

Her husband settles a warm palm at her spine and guides her towards the elevator, draws her in close for a crushing hug. "When we get home, we'll get the kids bathed and then we'll all crawl into our bed and watch a movie or something. Okay?"

"Okay. Sounds nice."

"Terrible things happen to people who don't deserve it, Kate. We both know that. But when we get home, our kids are waiting. And they love you so much."

Kate grits her teeth, can't understand why this case has struck such a chord with her. She's seen far, far worse. Been through worse herself. It just all feels so pitifully hopeless tonight. She needs her family, yes, but first this. A tender, exploratory kiss with her husband as the precinct elevator sinks down to the parking garage and the soothing heat of his palms ghosting up and down her back.

The elevator doors slide open and Kate steps out with Castle hot at her back, hands him her keys and moves around to the passenger side. Suddenly, she's exhausted, just wants to close her eyes and rest a while as he weaves them through the rivers of city traffic, takes them home. "Do you mind?"

"Course not. Come on, Detective Beckett. Let's get you home."

Kate twists in her seat to watch him, pillows her cheek against her hand and marvels at the hard edge of his profile against the wash of light in the background. There were so many times like this, usually with her driving and he the one in the passenger seat, where she would glance over and see him looking just like this and wonder whether they'd ever get their shot.

Only now, those memories are superimposed with two very different drives to the hospital. One thick with panic as Kate warred with her body, battled desperately to keep their son safe inside. Too soon, and the fear didn't release its clutches until long after Jack was here and safe and perfectly healthy.

And the second time, their daughter, the two of them buoyed up with excitement so that even through the gnawing pain of the contractions Kate couldn't stifle her smile.

"You know, as much as I hate it sometimes, I could never regret the precinct. It brought me you."

Castle glances over at her and grins, has to turn back to face the road before he can do any of the things he so obviously wants to. "Yeah, I know. I don't regret any of it, really. We have a pretty great life together, Kate Castle."

"Yeah." Kate smiles at him, finds she can sit up a little straighter. "We do."


	11. Chapter 11

**Wednesday, December 11****th**

* * *

They're out when Castle gets the call, Kate and Bea tossing a ball for Snicket as the frost-capped grass brushes their ankles, soft little touches of ice that melt when they meet the warmth of a body. Rick sits on the bench, his bad knee stiff with cold, and watches the two of them hurrying back and forth.

Bea chases the dog; Kate curls an arm around their daughter's waist and hoists her up, keeps their baby girl close against her chest. The vibration of his cell phone in his pocket startles Rick and he struggles to pull it free, the cold rendering his thick fingers a little useless even inside of the gloves.

Gloves that work on his touch screen – a gift from Kate – and so he doesn't even have to take them off to accept the call from his son's school. "Hello."

"Mr Castle? This is Helen from Marlowe Prep."

Ah, yes. Helen is the receptionist, a scary but efficient woman. She has to be, for the parents to trust that she won't let a maniac with a gun or a paedophile or someone equally awful just go wandering into the school. It was the only thing he was adamant about.

Alexis never went to preschool, so Rick and Kate researched those together and scouted out the best for their kids. But Castle knows Marlowe, and they know him, and Jack's name went on the waiting list before he could even walk.

It caused some arguments, Kate yelling that she hated that he was railroading her on this, that she didn't get to have any say in it. And in hindsight, he sees that she was right. It wasn't fair of him to make the decision without consulting her; he just felt so strongly about it that he honestly didn't even imagine she'd have any objection.

It made sense to him to send their kids to the same school as Alexis. And he thinks he's forgiven. Certainly, he made sure to discuss it when it came time to start considering where Bea would go.

"Hi, Helen. How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you." The hard-edged voice at the other end of the line says. "However, Jack isn't. Seems he has a stomach bug. Are you able to come and collect him?"

"Of course, yes. I'll be there in fifteen minutes." Castle says, standing up from the bench and gesturing to Kate. His wife must catch the look on his face because she hurries over to him, dragging both a reluctant dog and a reluctant daughter with her. "Thanks Helen. See you soon."

He hangs up and shoves the phone back in his pocket. "Jack's sick. I'll go pick him up. You guys head back to the loft with Snicks. Or I guess you can stay here if you want to."

"Don't be an idiot. We'll meet you at home. I'll grab some Pedialyte and crackers on the way back. You go get our son." Kate says, winding her scarf a little tighter around her neck and clutching Bea's hand. Their daughter must sense the urgency in her parents because for once she doesn't put up a fight, allows her mother to start leading her back the way they came.

"Bye bye Daddy." She grins at him and he bends down, figures an extra few seconds to kiss his daughter's cheek won't hurt. Her arms wrap around his neck and he settles a palm at her back, his fingers spanning the whole of the width between her shoulder blades.

Eventually he manages to peel their little girl off of him and stand up, press a kiss to his wife's cheek as well before the girls leave him. Castle pulls his phone free and calls his car service, makes sure they'll remember the child seat. Time to go get his poor, sick little boy.

* * *

As soon as he sees his father Jack bursts into tears that fall hot against his cheeks, little face crumpling. Mostly in relief, Rick thinks, but even so it sends a surge of panic through him. "Oh baby, come here."

Helen frowns at the affection, but Castle doesn't care as he lifts Jack into his arms and cradles him like a tiny thing. He frowns right back, signs the clipboard she thrusts at him and then he's buzzed out of the building, nudging the doors with his hip so he can keep both arms securely around his son.

"Daddy, I feel bad." Jack whimpers in his arms, fever almost scalding even through the white starch of his shirt. The poor kid still has his tie on, even though Helen said he threw up twice. Sure, the school drills the importance of a smart uniform into them, but come on.

The driver opens the door for them and Castle smiles in thanks, straps Jack into the seat and pulls the tie off, opens the top two buttons of the shirt for good measure. "You think you're gonna throw up again buddy?"

"Don't know." Jack whines, his hair dark with sweat and sticking to his temples. Their driver, Alex, hands Castle a paper bag and he straightens up, meets the man's eyes.

"Thank you. That's great. Here, Jack, you can use this if you get sick again, okay?"

"Kay." His kid whimpers and Castle rounds the car to climb in the other side, eschewing the window seat in favour of sitting close to his son. Jack's forehead is too warm under his father's palm, but not warm enough for serious concern.

Just a stomach bug, but the poor kid looks miserable. Alex is slipping back into the driver's seat and pulling away from the school already, hurrying before Castle even has to ask. Kate can roll her eyes all she likes, but this is what he pays for.

* * *

When the loft door opens again, Kate hurries to catch it and let her husband inside. He's cradling their son in both arms and Kate follows him to the couch, sits down and then lifts her hands to take Jack from him. Bringing her little boy in close to her chest, Kate rests her mouth at his ear and hums soothing nonsense to him.

"You get the Pedialyte?" Castle asks, unfastening another button on his shirt and rolling his shoulders.

Kate gestures towards their room absent-mindedly, all her attention drawn up tight so she can pour it into her sick child. "On the bed. Can you get it?"

"Sure. Gonna get a cloth too. And, oh, a basin."

Oh, man. So Jack's still throwing up then. Kate grimaces in sympathy and cards her fingers through his hair, brings her thumb around to circle his cheek. "Hi, my sweet boy. How are you feeling?"

"Bad, Mommy." He whimpers, all of his breath support gone so his words are threadlike and thin. Poor baby, her heart just breaks for him. If she could do this in his place, she would.

Hell, she _did_. The early stages of her pregnancy with Jack were. . .not pleasant.

"Okay sweetheart. Daddy's gonna get you some medicine and something to help you cool down, okay? Would you like to take a bath?"

Jack manages a nod, his eyes screwed closed and his face pressed into her shirt. She feels hot tears soaking through to meet her skin and carefully stands up, gathers him in her arms. Kate finds her husband in the bathroom, running the faucet for cold water and hunting through the linen closet for a flannel.

"Gonna get him in the bath. I don't know if it's worth giving him meds right now. He'll probably just bring them back up."

Her husband shrugs, shuts off the faucet and starts filling the bathtub instead. "Sweetheart, do you want me to take a bath with you?" Kate hums to her son.

"You both." Jack whimpers, manages to get his eyes open. Glassy tears coalesce in the shadowy fringe of his lashes, the flush in his cheeks stark against the pale moon of his face.

Kate opens her mouth to argue – there's no way all three of them can fit – but Castle's already stripping off his shirt and reaching for their son before she can even start to explain. She lets him take the boy, peels off her own clothes as he undresses Jack and gestures for her to climb in.

The water is a little too tepid for her liking, but hopefully it'll ease Jack's fever. Beckett settles down in the water and reaches out for her son, brings Jack in to curl up in her arms. He lets out a long sigh and his whole body relaxes, tension unwinding out of him.

Next to the bathtub, between it and the wall, there's a tiled area that serves as a great shelf. For a glass of wine or a book or, right now, Castle's butt. He rolls his pants up to his knees and climbs in, rests his feet in the water and curls his large palm around their son's head. "Any better, my man?"

"A little bit, Daddy." Jack says, little hand coming up to rest at Kate's clavicle. She shifts in the enormous bathtub to lean back against Castle's leg, his other hand curling around her shoulder.

The bathroom door nudges open and Bea slips inside, comes over to rest her chin against the lip of the tub and gaze up at the rest of her family. "Jacky still sick?"

"Yes, sweet girl. Be very quiet, okay?"

"I bringed him's favourite book, Daddy." Bea says, handing it over to her father. She must have stepped on the toy box to reach, this one lives on the top shelf of Jack's bookshelf, but it's such a sweet gesture that Kate can't even be mad.

She reaches out a hand to touch two fingers to her daughter's cheek, smiles softly at the girl. "You're a good sister, Little Bean. Do you want to get the bean chair and sit in here, and Daddy can read to all of us."

"Oh, yes please, Momma." Bea breathes, scurrying away and reappearing a moment later with the bean bag from the living room she loves so much. Says it's named after her, and it does bring a chuckle of amusement to Kate and her husband every time it's mentioned.

Once the girl is settled, Castle opens the book and begins to read. His voice is so deep and soothing, curving over the dip and crest of each word. Slow and melodious, and it makes Kate feel safe and loved and like nothing can ever, ever be wrong again.

Honestly, it's one of the things that makes her fall hardest for him. Listening to him read to their kids, how he doesn't neglect a single word, gives each character a voice that makes them laugh or keeps them enthralled. Not for the first time, she wonders what it was like for him to do this alone.

Alexis is wonderful, of course, but Kate's seen glances into how hard it must have been for him. Snatches of conversation, a look of gratitude when he finds her by his side. It breaks her heart, but it's okay.

This time, he's not doing any of it alone.

Jack falls asleep in the bath, Bea in the chair on the floor, but for a long time neither Kate nor Rick dares to move and disturb the fragile peace. Eventually, Castle eases their way out from behind her and gathers their son in his arms.

Following him through to the bedroom, Kate leans against the doorframe and watches as he dries their son off and dresses him in pyjamas, tucks him up in the middle of their bed. He goes back for their daughter, takes her all the way upstairs to her own bed and then, finally, he comes for Kate.

He laces their fingers and pulls her through to the living room, drags her down to curl in his lap on the couch. "Poor little guy."

"He'll be okay." Kate murmurs, kisses the thrumming pulse at Castle's neck. "He has the most amazing daddy."


	12. Chapter 12

**Thursday, December 12****th**

* * *

The sunlight comes in too quickly and Kate groans, screws her eyes closed and buries her face against her husband's chest. Rough night.

Half of it was spent in the rocking chair in Jack's room watching over him, cleaning him up every time he got sick again. He's been through nearly every pair of pyjamas that he owns, finally passed out with exhaustion around five. So that's two hours ago, and two hours is not nearly enough sleep.

Castle's fingers curl around her bicep and he drops a kiss to her crown, the thunder of his voice stirring underneath her ear. "We made it through the war zone."

"Poor little man." Kate hums, heart breaking all over again. The image of her son's tiny body hunched over the basin and convulsing as he threw up too clear in her mind, too painful. Nothing in his stomach to even bring back, and now he's got to be seriously dehydrated. "I might call Lanie, see if she can check him over."

"Sounds like a good idea. You gonna go to work?"

She doesn't want to. It's stupid, she knows, because he has his father, but she really doesn't want to leave Jack. Her baby boy, and he clung to her so pitifully with her name crumbling in his mouth. "I think I'll see if I can just be on call today. Stay with him for as long as possible."

"Good plan. I'll get Bea up and to preschool, then, if you're good to stay with him." Castle murmurs, slipping out from underneath her and dropping a kiss to her cheek, arranging the sheets around her again. Pointless, since she'll have to go check on their son, but the gesture is sweet all the same.

Kate arches her spine and then relaxes back to the mattress again, scrubs a hand down her face. Okay, she can do this. Her baby needs her, there's no other option.

Stepping out of bed, Kate showers quickly and secures her hair in a ponytail, pulls on jeans and a sweater. There are no socks of hers to hand so she pulls on a pair of Castle's, strangely cavernous around her slender feet. No time for any makeup, every second she's not with Jack the chokehold of fear grows a little tighter.

Surely Castle will have checked on him, made sure he didn't choke in his sleep or anything. Even so, the rush of panic in her veins won't abate until she knows for sure. Kate heads for the stairs, stopping a moment to give her daughter a good morning kiss where she sits at the kitchen island.

Upstairs, her son is sacked out on top of the sheets, his little mouth parted. At least there's that, at least he has some respite from the misery of last night. Kate backs out of his room and tugs her phone from her pocket, dials Gates as she moves back downstairs.

"Good morning, Beckett." The older woman answers. Sometimes their captain's kindness still catches her by surprise. It took them a while to warm up to each other, but they got there. And ever since Kate had her kids, Gates has been even more sympathetic.

Not for the first time, Kate is grateful for the fact that the captain has kids of her own, understands how hard it can be to manage a career with a family. "Morning, Sir."

"Family emergency?" Gates chases her words with a breath of compassionate laughter, not a trace of resentment there, and it helps to ease away the tension in Beckett's body.

She comes into the kitchen and slips onto the stool next to her daughter, sets her free hand at the girl's little knee. "Yes, Sir. Jack was sick all last night. I know he has Castle, but I really don't want to leave him."

"I'll put you on call for today, Detective. Let me know if you need to take leave." Gates offers.

Kate manages a wan smile for her husband, scrapes a hand through her hair. "Thank you Sir."

"Is that Cap?" Bea shrieks, withers a little when Castle hushes her.

"Yes, it's Cap." Beckett laughs, hears her own amusement echoed in her captain. "Sir, Bea says hello."

"Hello to her from me, Detective. I'll let you go take care of your son. Just keep me up to date, okay?"

"Yes Sir." Kate says, hangs up and lets herself collapse against the wall of her husband's body at her side. "She put me on call. But Espo'll take point, they might not even need me at all."

"Fantastic. Okay, Little Bean, let's get dressed. Very quietly." Castle says, wrapping his hands underneath their daughter's arms to lift her off of the stool and usher her over towards the stairs. He takes a moment to kiss Kate, humming gently against her mouth. "You're the best mom they could ask for."

"I love you." She murmurs back to him, feels it rich and overflowing up from somewhere pure and true inside her. Honestly, she has no idea how he did this by himself for Alexis.

She has no idea how she'd do it without him.

* * *

Having ensconced herself in the rocking chair in Jack's room, Kate is the first thing her son sees when he opens his eyes. She gives him a tender smile and kneels down next to the bed, cards a hand through hair damp with sweat. Sleep and fever and exhaustion all coming together, the poor kid.

"Hi, my sweet boy. How are you feeling?"

"Hungry." He says, blinking hard and frowning as if he doesn't quite know who she is. "Tired."

Kate pulls the sheets down off of him and lifts his shirt at the back, hopes the rush of cool air will rouse him a little more. "Okay baby. Do you want to come curl up on the couch and we can try some toast? Yeah?"

Jack reaches up to curl thin arms around her neck, whimpering a little when she lifts him. Lighter than she remembers, and that's ridiculous, but it's there all the same. "I called Aunt Lanie and she's going to come help you feel better, okay?"

"I feel bad, Mommy." Jack moans, rubbing his face back and forth against her shirt.

Kate skates her palm up and down his spine, tries to hum as soothingly as she can against the shell of his ear. "I know you do, sweetheart. I know."

When she gets him downstairs, Kate settles him on the couch and drapes a blanket over him, moves to the kitchen to start on some toast for her son. The heavy footsteps of her husband move across the loft, Castle obviously having heard them from the office.

"Hey, my man. How are you feeling?" The rumble of his voice carries easily to her where she stands, feeling a little lost in the middle of the kitchen. She loves him, all the time of course, but maybe most like this. The love he has for their children, the way he extends it outwards to include her.

Kate puts bread in the toaster and fills a glass of water, brings it back to her son with a straw. Castle's on the couch now, their son's head pillowed in his lap as he scrolls through the television channels. "You and Daddy both are here."

"That's right, baby. Mommy and Daddy are both going to take care of you." There's a knock at the door and Kate kisses her son's damp forehead, moves to let Lanie in. "Hi. Thanks for coming."

"Anything for my nephew." Lanie says, moves straight for the couch and kneels down in front of Jack. "Hi buddy. Mommy says you're not feeling good."

"I got sick lots of times." He whines, turns his face into Caste's thigh.

Lanie has her bag with her, but she makes no move for it and Kate fills with gratitude for her friend's thoughtfulness. Jack hates the doctor's surgery, screams all the way through every check-up, and the appearance of medical instruments would only upset him.

"Do you still feel like you're going to get sick again?" Lanie asks, settles a gentle palm at the tiny boy's back.

He glances at his father as if for permission, gets a steady nod from Castle and turns back to his aunt. "I don't know. There's nothing in my tummy to come out."

"Right, but maybe if you put something in your tummy it might come out?" Lanie says, offers their son a nod of encouragement. Kate is surprised to find herself still standing in the middle of the room and moves to sit at her son's feet, curling her fingers around his ankle.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well let's try some dry toast, hmm? Go slowly, and we'll see what happens. Can you drink all of this water up for me buddy?" Lanie says, lifts the glass so he can get his mouth around the straw. Jack takes a careful sip, grimaces and gags a little, but keeps it down. "Nice and slow, good boy."

Lanie passes Castle the glass and sets her hand at Kate's shoulder in askance, moves with her to the kitchen under the guise of helping with the toast. "He'll be fine. Just a bug. He's a little dehydrated, but not anything I think you need to worry about. See how he does with the toast and the water, keep it nice and slow. Don't push him to recover faster than he's ready for."

"Lanie," Kate rails against her friend's raised eyebrow, a hot wash of shame ripping through her. "He's my son. Do you really think I'd push him?"

"Of course not. My point, Kate, is that it's okay to take a little time to recover."

Beckett sighs and rolls her eyes, but only because she knows Lanie is right. She does have a tendency to push herself too hard, too fast, hates feeling like an invalid. Not that there's been much cause for it lately. She's careful, obscenely so, doesn't ever want to rob her children of their mother if she can help it.

And of course, now she has Castle, who really won't let her go and go and go until she collapses. He revels in every opportunity to take care of her, and guilt for the summer she disappeared has her giving in every time.

Lanie opens her arms for a hug and Kate accepts it, takes a moment to recollect herself in her best friend's arms. Lanie, who has been here for all of it, seen how the broken, tragic shadow of a woman she once was has blossomed into someone Kate is actually proud to be.

A reminder of how hard she fought for this, how much she owes Castle. "Thank you, Lanie. For everything."

"You'd do the same for me." Lanie shrugs, plates up the toast and hands it to Kate.

Raising an eyebrow, Beckett casts a slow glance at her friend's abdomen, purses her lips. "Yes, I would. You gonna give me occasion to?"

"You just shut up, Katherine Beckett. We're not all as lucky as you."

Kate laughs, doesn't even bother to dispute that statement. There's no need. Lanie knows how hard a fight it was to get here, how many times she thought it would never happen. "Okay, okay, I'm saying nothing. Just- you know he wants it, right?"

"I know he does. So do I. But wanting it and actually _having_ it are very different things. Neither of us can stay at home. Who'd take care of them?" Lanie says, so ashamed that Kate pulls her back in for another hug.

"Lanie, just go for it. All of that stuff has a way of working itself out. And you know Rick and I and the Ryans would be willing to help out. The amount of times you've sat for us Lanie, please. We owe you big time. Just jump in. It's worth it."

The outburst surprises both of them, Kate casting a furtive glance over to her husband. She didn't know how true it was until just now, how even the hardest parts pale in comparison to how amazing the rest of it is. She nods slowly, comes back to meet Lanie's eyes.

"It's worth it."


	13. Chapter 13

**Friday, December 13****th**

* * *

"Daddy, Friday the thirteenth!" Jack giggles from his nest on the couch, so much more chipper today than yesterday that he seems almost like a different child. Bea is curled up in one armchair with Snicket, Castle settled in the other with his feet propped on the coffee table.

Watching over them both. Bea seemed a little green yesterday evening, but she's okay now it seems. Just a scare. "That's right. Do you know what that means?"

"Unlucky!" Bea beams at him, pausing from her game of folding the poor dog's ears inside out and seeing how long it takes him to shake them back into place. "Because of witches, Daddy?"

Huh, actually, he doesn't know _where_ it comes from. Maybe this can be their activity for the day, keep his children entertained but also, yeah, educate them. Their grandmother loves the drama of this day, so maybe she could come over and amuse them for a while too.

"I'm not sure, Beanie Ella. What do you say we do some detecting?"

"Like Mommy!" His kids chorus, delighted with the opportunity to emulate their mother in some small way. He wishes she could see how much they adore her, let it abate some of her guilt for the danger her job brings to their family.

Doesn't matter. They love her for it.

"Yeah, like Mom. I'll go get my laptop." He says, goes to fetch it from the floor next to his bed. Last night, he wrote for hours with Kate's face mashed against his thigh and the sleepy warmth of her breath making his skin break into gooseflesh even in spite of the thick material of his sweats.

When he comes back, Bea is settled on the other end of the couch from her brother and she pats the space between them, grins widely. "You sit here, Daddy."

Settling down between them, Rick balances his laptop against his knees and presses the button to power it up, curling an arm around the shoulders of each child and pressing a kiss to each of their cheeks. His laptop comes awake and he opens his web browser to type in the date.

He ignores the results about the movie franchise and goes instead with something that seems a little more informative. Both his children are quiet, their cheeks pressed to his biceps as they watch him search. "Look, here we go. Friday has been an unlucky day since at least _The Canterbury Tales_. Mommy read that book; we can ask her about it."

Castle didn't, was quite content to remain firmly on the outside as Kate grappled with Chaucer. Every so often, she would turn to him and read something aloud, raise an eyebrow. So he knows a little, but his wife is really the expert here.

"Why thirteen, Daddy?" Jack murmurs, taps the picture of Rossini that breaks up the wall of text on the page. "Who's that?"

"Gioachino Rossini. He was an Italian composer. Look at this, it says that Italians often regard Friday as an unlucky day and thirteen an unlucky number. And guess what day Rossini died?"

"Friday the thirteenth!" His kids shriek, Bea almost writhing with excitement in the seat next to him.

Castle laughs, ruffles his baby girl's hair. "That's right. Oh, children, listen. Do you know what the word for the phobia of Friday the thirteenth is?" They shake their heads, watching him solemnly and he comes so, so close to laughing. "Friggatriskaidekaphobia."

"No, Daddy, that can't be a real word." Jack laughs, traces the squiggly string of letters on the laptop screen. He frowns, mouth working over the word.

Castle laughs and closes the lid of the laptop, figures that's enough learning for his sick son and his preschooler. "How about at dinner tonight we can tell Mommy the word and see if she can guess what it means?"

"Mommy will guess straight away. She's so smart." Bea says decisively, slipping down off of the couch and curling her fingers in Snicket's collar to drag him with her.

Jack shares a look with his father, neither of them bothering to dispute the little one. After all, she's right. Her mother is probably the smartest woman Castle has ever known.

* * *

When Kate gets home, her family are already crowding around the dinner table. She's running late, kept getting mired in more and more work no matter how hard she struggled to free herself, but at least her husband doesn't seem to have eaten.

The kids have, it doesn't seem fair to make them wait, but Rick almost never does. He says he loves eating with her too much, the moment of peace and quiet it affords them as they sip at their wine and discuss the day. From the pantry, Martha appears with a box of crackers and spots Kate hovering by the door. "Katherine, darling, you're home."

"Mommy." The kids yell, breaking away from the table only once they receive a nod of permission from their father. Castle himself is getting up to trail their children over to where she stands, coming in to kiss her and take her coat.

"You're home."

"I'm home." She lifts into him, seeks out another brush of his mouth before the kids succeed in their efforts to pull her over toward the table.

Once Kate is seated, Bea climbs up into her lap and curls her arms around her mother's neck, nuzzles at the warmth trapped there by Kate's scarf. "Gram came to tell us stories about all the bad things that have happened today."

Shooting a startled glance at her mother-in-law, Kate gets a laugh and a slight shake of Martha's head. Castle's mother comes around to sit next to Beckett, swoops in to kiss the detective's cheek. "She means on this date, darling."

Oh, right. Of course. The boys have been needling her about it all day, stands to reason that Castle would recruit his mother to come stir up the same surge of adrenaline in their children as well.

Jack climbs up to sit in his father's lap, the two of them across the table from the girls, but he offers his mother a shy smile as he chews slowly on a cracker. Good, he's feeling better today then. She had hoped so, Castle said so when he called at lunchtime, but it's good to see it for herself.

"Daddy, please will you tell Mommy that word?"

"Right, yes." Castle laughs, sends Kate a sympathetic glance. "Okay Mommy, a challenge for you. Can you guess what the word friggatriskaidekaphobia means?"

Oh jeez. Well, probably something to do with the date, right? That seems to be a theme for today. And it ended in phobia, so. . . "No, I don't know what that means. Can one of you guys enlighten me?"

"It does mean to be frightened of Friday the thirteenth, Mommy." Jack says, his grin so wide that Kate can't help but echo it. Castle raises an eyebrow at her – of course he can tell that she figured it out – but she shrugs at him. It made her kids happy to get to teach her something, and who is she to rob them of that?

Tension flickers in his jaw and his hands tighten almost imperceptivity around their son. Uhuh, Rick Castle. She's not blind to the fact that her being a good mom makes him want her. Kate shoots him a look, hopes he can read it for what it is. A promise for later.

First, this. "Jack-Jack, did you get all the advent chocolates you missed when you were sick?"

"Oh, I forgot them." Her son breathes, his eyes wide.

Kate laughs, shakes her head at him in tender amusement. "How about you and Beanie Ella show your gram all about your calendars?"

"Okay. Come on, Gram." Their son says, tugging at his grandmother's hand until she acquiesces and stands up to join him.

Beckett slides out of her seat and comes around to the other side of the table, pushes the chair next to Castle's a little closer before she sits. "Hi. Missed you today."

"Me too." Castle hums, comes in to kiss her softly. He settles his palm at her cheek to keep her there, but there's no need. Nowhere else she'd rather be. When he breaks away, it's to laugh softly against her mouth. "They wanted to watch the movie. I said no, of course."

"Wait till they're older." Kate agrees, rests her head against his shoulder. She's crashing hard, the day at the precinct too long after the sleepless nights up with her little boy, and more than anything she wants to climb into a scalding bath with him and let the lovely, circling pressure of his fingers ease the tightness in her muscles. "Do you think your mother will take them out for ice cream?"

"I think that usually the biggest barrier to that scenario is you, Detective Beckett. You okay?" His voice rumbles against her temple and he brings an arm around her shoulders, coasts his palm up and down her bicep.

Kate nods, tips her chin up to kiss his jaw. "Just tired. And. . .I want you, Rick. But they seem pretty wired."

"Mother." Castle calls out; slips gently out from underneath Kate to join the rest of their family. "Would you take the little ones out for dessert?"

"Of course." Martha nods, concerned gaze flitting over to land on Kate. "Is Katherine alright?"

"She's just tired. Don't worry, I'll take care of her." Castle says and pins his mother underneath his gaze to make absolutely sure that she knows he means it. Or so Kate assumes, anyway.

Eyelids slipping closed, Kate startles at the touch of a little hand to her cheek. When she glances up, it's to meet the careful face of her son as he regards her. "Mommy, are you having bad luck?"

"No baby, I'm just tired. You go out with Gram and have fun. Oh, but only if you're feeling okay."

Jack grins and nods vigorously at her, brings his arms around her neck for a burst of a hug. "I feel good, Momma. Daddy will stay here with you?"

"Yes, Daddy will take care of me." He better. For once, she's actually willing to acquiesce to needing him. Beckett glances over at her husband to see him buttoning up their daughter's coat and pressing a kiss to her forehead, tugging a hat over the spill of her curls for good measure.

Once their family are out of the door, Castle closes it firmly behind them and comes back for Kate. Guiding her to her feet, Rick bands his arm tight around her back and sips at the font of her mouth. Oh, she's missed him. Of course their children are wonderful, their lives now so good, but sometimes she can't help but yearn for how it was in the very beginning. When every glance between them was ripe with heat and they could barely go an hour without touching.

"Let's get you in the bath, love. Or did you want dinner first?"

Suddenly, the thought of food has her mouth filling with saliva and she moans, lists into her husband. "Bath. Definitely bath."

"Kate, are you-"

"Don't" She chokes out, stepping towards the bathroom. "Don't say it. Don't make it true."

Castle watches her carefully, a wall of strength at her back, and after she turns on the taps he sinks slowly to the floor with his arms carefully secured around her, gathers her cautiously into his lap. "Okay, sweetheart. Okay. You want a cracker or something?"

Oh, God. Please no more mentioning food.

"No. Just you, and a bath. Please." Hot, stupid tears cloud her vision and she bites down hard on her lip, refuses to look at him. Rick cups her cheek to keep her head pillowed against him, murmurs gently against the shell of her ear.

"Okay. Come on, then. Let's get you undressed." He stands slowly, drawing her up with him, but now her knees are refusing to lock and then she catches the scent of his cologne, trapped in the tender skin of his neck, and her whole body revolts.

Kate falls to her knees in front of the toilet and brings up her pitiful lunch, the wonderful breakfast Castle made this morning. He stays away, knows better than to touch her, and in her peripheral vision she sees him fixing her a glass of water.

Her stomach contracts hard and she retches again, nothing left to bring up this time. Oh yeah, she has Jack's bug alright.

Damn it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Saturday, December 14****th**

* * *

Castle calls in to the precinct early, Kate still sacked out on her stomach in their bed. From the office, he watches the measured lift and collapse of her chest and lets it ease some of the clutching panic that has stifled him in its grip since last night.

When Kate got sick, he called his mother and she agreed to keep the kids for the night. It's not that he thinks they'd get in the way, be loud or unruly. Just that Kate hates for _anyone_ to see her sick, and she's meticulous about not letting their children see her that way.

He hates it, but she's determined to be a pillar of strength for them.

The captain offers her sympathies, tells him to make sure Beckett doesn't push herself back to work too soon. It's probably a mistake to make that promise, but he does it anyway. Even if he has to confiscate her keys and her phone and her badge, she's staying here until she can keep something in her stomach.

She stirs, and Castle hangs up quickly and shifts to sit carefully at her hip, lifting her hand to his mouth to press a kiss to her knuckles. "Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Better. Don't think I'll get sick again." She murmurs, her voice a little fissured from the vomiting. Oh God, he loves her, and it's killing him to see her like this.

His wife rolls over slowly and Castle settles a hand between her shoulder blades, lifts her slowly to lean against the headboard. He offers her the glass of water from the nightstand and she takes a slow sip, manages a smile for him. She's too warm when he brushes his fingers at her cheek, the sweat cooling at her nape more than just sleep.

But she does seem brighter, stronger already. "You wanna try and eat something?"

"Mm, dry toast?" Her eyes slip closed and she rests her head back as if her neck can't support it anymore, wiped out already. Yeah, he was definitely right to call in sick to work for her. Even if she kills him for it later.

Castle presses a closed-mouth kiss to her cheek, has to take a moment just to gather in the unspooling of his silly, tender heart. How much he loves her spilling all over the sheets. "Okay, coming right up. You want the laptop? You could watch a movie."

"Don't think I can keep my eyes open. Will you read to me?"

"Of course, yeah. Of course. You need anything else?" He says quietly, cards a hand through her hair. It's a little greasy, kinda gross, but she nuzzles into his touch and he can't bring himself to care.

Kate hums, burrows down into the sheets a little further. "No. Just you."

"You've got me, Kate. You've got me."

* * *

When her eyes open to the insistent push of the midday sun through the slats in the blinds, Kate feels a hundred times better. She managed to keep the toast down, and so now she doesn't feel as shaky with exhaustion anymore. Not exactly up to a marathon, but if she goes slow she's able to step out of bed and not feel like she's about to fall down.

In the living room, she finds her husband ensconced on the couch with his laptop cradled to his chest like it's his fourth child. Poor man was up all night with her, scraping her hair back and offering her small sips of water and soothing words of comfort.

He was wonderful. She won't wake him. Instead, Kate goes slowly through to the kitchen and tugs open the fridge door, Castle's shirt hanging heavy over the birdcage of her clavicles, her ribs. She grabs an apple and slices it up, comes back to the couch to sit at Rick's feet with her snack.

Chewing each segment slowly, Kate curls her hand around his ankle and strokes her thumb over the hard plateau of bone. The apple tastes a little off and her stomach flutters, but she keeps it down. Once she's finished, she goes to put her bowl in the dishwasher and when she comes back her husband is sitting up, rubbing at his eyes.

"Hi gorgeous. You feeling better?" He grins, stretches out a hand to take hers and reel her in to sit beside him. Kate drops her head to his shoulder and burrows into his sleepy warmth, hums contentedly.

"Yeah. I'm really hoping you called in sick for me."

Rick laughs at that, curls his arm around her back and hooks his fingers at her hipbone. His thumb circles her skin and she trembles, doesn't quite know whether it's hunger or. . ._hunger_. "I did, yeah."

"What'd she say?"

"To extend her deepest sympathies to you. And that she hopes to see you fit and well on Monday." He says, kisses the skin just behind her ear and she groans, struggles to put a little distance between them.

"Don't, I feel disgusting. Will you go get the kids while I shower?" She peels herself up off of the couch, has to drop a palm to the arm of the chair so she doesn't fall to her knees. Okay, so she still has to take things slowly.

Castle sees but he doesn't comment, lets her have her moment of tremulous weakness. "Sure. Family movie night on the couch?"

"Sounds good. And also, Rick, could I maybe have some chicken soup or something?" Her stomach is clawing at her insides now, in revolt after the thorough emptying of it she did last night.

Her husband stands up and draws her in for a hug, kisses her cheek carefully. "Of course. I'll see if we have some, and if not I'll pick some up on my way back with the kids. You okay to shower?"

"Are you asking if I need help getting naked, Mr Castle?" She quirks an eyebrow at him, earns herself a bubbling laugh.

There's less of that paralytic fear at the back of his eyes now. She knows it scares him probably more than anything else to see her hurting, see her weak, and so now she tries to give him everything she can as reassurance. "I guess I am."

"I think I'm okay for now. But Castle, later? Definitely." Kate leaves him on that thought, disappearing back into the bathroom without a backwards glance. Mm, yes, once she has her strength back-

Well. She owes him, doesn't she?

* * *

The kids are quiet almost to the point of sombre when Kate comes back from the shower, dressed in jeans and a soft sweater and her hair slowly drying in a loose braid. She feels more like a human being now, more like Detective Beckett, and so when the kids catch sight of her she opens her arms to them both.

"Hi guys. Did you have fun at Gram's?"

Bea giggles into Kate's neck, clinging tight to her mother's neck. "We sanged songs and also Gram showed us a movie that she was in a long long long time ago. Gram was so pretty like you, Mommy."

"I know, I've seen lots of Gram's movies. She was lovely wasn't she?" Kate says on a laugh, nuzzling her daughter's cheek. There was a moment of trepidation, but she figures there's no harm in it. If Bea's going to get sick, it's too late to do anything about it now.

Allowing her children to lead her over to the couch, Kate curls up in the corner and delights in the weight of them both against her. The dog jumps up onto the couch as well, rests his head at her feet, and Kate twists to look behind her to the kitchen.

At the stove, Castle is busy stirring something she really hopes to be her soup. Her mouth is dry, her body still shaky and craving nourishment, and it's still a battle to keep her eyes open. "Are you guys hungry?"

"Gram made waffles for breakfast with fruit and syrup. I'm sooo full." Bea writhes around on top of her mother and Kate huffs a breath, wraps her arms a little tighter around the girl to try and keep her still.

"Jackson?"

"I'm full too." Her son says, his voice muffled where he has his face pressed against her shoulder.

Castle comes back with her soup and gestures for the kids to get off of her, handing her the mug and gathering Jack and Bea in against his own chest instead. "Give Mommy a little space, guys. Let her have her soup."

Beckett sips slowly at the liquid, closes her eyes at the initial hum of warmth in her throat. It feels as if the broth curls its way into her extremities, drenching her in lovely heat so the last flickers of tension unlace themselves from around her spine.

"Mm, that's good. Thank you." Kate braves a bigger sip, delighted to find that the only jump of her stomach is one of gratitude.

"No problem. Love you, Mrs Castle." Castle murmurs, poking sock-clad toes against her thigh. She laughs into the rim of her mug, offers him a tender smile.

Yeah, he does love her. Of course she's always known, but sometimes it still does take her by surprise just how much of himself he pours into their family. "Love you too."

"Oh, Kate, before I forget, did Alexis ever ask you to go dress shopping with her?"

Huh? "No, why?"

"She mentioned that she needed a dress for a Christmas party and I said that you do to. Precinct party's on Friday, right?"

"Yeah. You coming with me?"

"Of course. But anyway. I talked her into you two going dress shopping together and she seemed pretty keen, but I guess not." He shrugs, dances his fingers up their daughter's stomach absent-mindedly until she squirms with laughter.

Kate narrows her eyes, frowns at her husband. "Castle, you don't think she's. . .scared of me, do you?"

"I think she's a little in awe of you, Kate. Especially when it comes to things like this. So maybe you could make the first move instead?" He offers. She'd love to kiss him, right now, but the kids are piled on his chest and she still has the mug of soup cradled in both hands and it's just not practical.

"I'll call her later today, then. Sure. It'd be nice to have company, and Lanie's always so busy."

"You know I'd be happy to join you." Her husband leers at her, gets a chorus of groans from both of their children. Kate laughs, shakes her head at him but says nothing. She'd like him to join her, too. She'd just rather not be arrested for public indecency.

"Alright kids, Mommy wants to watch movies. Choose one each, okay?" He tips them unceremoniously off of his lap and they scurry towards the office, hand in hand. Once they're out of earshot, Castle moves down the couch and draws Kate in against his side, kisses her mouth.

It feels like forever since he's done so and she lifts into his touch, hums against his lips and brings a hand up to toy with the soft hair at his nape. "Hi. Missed you."

"Hey, beautiful. I'm so glad you're feeling better."

Kate casts a pointed glance towards his crotch and lifts an eyebrow, presses her mouth into a seam. "I just bet you are."

"That's not what I- Kate, no."

"I know, I know, just teasing." She hurries to console him, presses her mouth against his again. "You've been so good to me."

"You were sick, I'm your husband. It's my job."

"Not. . .not just yesterday, Rick. Always, long before I came anywhere close to deserving it." The grief clutches at her ribs and she struggles not to choke, closes her eyes as her forehead crashes against his shoulder.

He must see it, because he smoothes his hand over her hair and hushes her gently. "Come on now, Kate. Hey, shh. You've always been worth it. Don't get maudlin, come on sweetheart. Movie night with the kids."

"Right, I know. Just- I love you, Castle." She shrugs, their kids coming back before he gets a chance to return the sentiment. But it doesn't matter, because the warm bodies curling up close to hers are testament enough to how much he loves her, too.


	15. Chapter 15

**Sunday, December 15****th**

* * *

Castle wakes to the sudden rush of air moving out of his lungs, the shock of it like drowning as he's wrenched upwards through the filmy surface of sleep. Squinting his eyes open, he sees his daughter perched on the plane of his chest with her face pressed so close to his own that she's hazy, transparent seeming.

"Daddy, today we have breakfast with Santa."

Oh jeez, yeah, he forgot. "Yes baby, I know. But not this early."

It's still dark, for goodness sake. Rick turns his head to the side to glance at his wife, sees she's still fast asleep. One small blessing, at least. Kate needs all the rest she can get, still shaky and much too ethereal-seeming for his liking.

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

"I know you are, sweetpea. Go on back to bed for a while. You can play quietly if you like. I'll come get you when it's time to get up." He murmurs to his daughter, lifts her down to the floor beside the bed.

Bea scurries out of the room and Castle rolls over, shifts his weight in the bed until he's aligned fully with Kate's side. She's warm, burrows into him in her sleep, and his heart clenches hard. There's something so fundamentally right about it, Kate against him in their bed, and he falls right back into sleep with barely a snag of awareness.

When he next opens his eyes the sun is up, and so is his wife. She's leaning back against the headboard, nimble fingers playing with the dark fall of hair over his forehead, and when she sees that he's awake she bends at the waist for an awkward scrape of her mouth over his. "Hey there, sleepy head."

"Mm, best way to wake up."

His wife laughs at that, offers no resistance when he drags her down and rolls himself half on top of her. Rick goes for her mouth with no pretence, strokes his tongue inside even with the taste of the morning a little stale between them.

"You up for very quiet Sunday morning sex?" He grunts, his hand already working its way underneath her sleep shirt to explore the creamy swathes of skin at her waist.

Kate grins and tugs his shirt up over his head in answer, her own fingers playing at the waistband of his sweatpants. "Okay. Quickly."

"You don't need me to. . .warm you up?" He frowns, snakes his hand down beneath her leggings.

She gasps, an ephemeral thing that lifts up from her chest and collapses into a sigh. "I'm warm enough, Rick."

Well, okay then. Quickly it is.

* * *

The cafe they're headed to is a tradition of sorts; Castle used to take Alexis here until she stopped believing in Father Christmas. Entirely too early, he always says, and nurtures the belief in their children with a sort of desperate intensity.

They came here last year and both kids have been looking forward to coming back for what seems like forever. Kate keeps a careful hold of her son's hand as they climb the stairs to exit the subway, trusts that Castle will corral their daughter.

If she and her husband get separated they'll just have to meet at the cafe. Jack turns his chin up to her and grins, almost stumbles at the top step. "Mommy, I can have toast?"

"Of course you can, sweet boy. You can have whatever you want. Do you know what you're gonna ask Santa for?" Kate manages to steer him clear of the relentless flow of foot traffic, slowing down her gait so he can keep up.

Jack squeezes her fingers in his, almost trips again on the uneven edge to a paving stone and Kate has to tug sharply on his hand to lift him up over it. "I do know Mommy. But I'm not telling you."

"That's fine, buddy. Look, just down there. Do you see the decorations?"

The cafe has a blow-up Santa in the window, a reindeer tucked into the doorway and the strings of multicoloured lights that adorn the facade cast a rainbow over the pale moon of her son's face as they come up to the door. Kate scoops him up and presses her back to the brickwork, shudders a little at the chill even through her trench coat.

A little way down the pavement, she spots her husband with Bea in his arms. Castle's a head taller than most of the other pedestrians and he cuts swathes through them with natural ease, heading straight for her. That fiercely vibrant flutter of pride starts up in her stomach and she smiles against her son's crown, suddenly shy.

How much she loves being the one Castle looks at this way still sometimes takes her by surprise. "Hey there, you two." He says when he reaches them, kisses her cheek on his way to opening the door. He ushers Kate in ahead of him and she goes, sets their son down once the door is closed.

Jack grabs for his sister's hand and the two of them are quickly swept up by a server dressed as an elf. Castle's thick fingers slide between her own and a ripple of awareness tears through her, leftover arousal from this morning. He said quick, but he ended up methodically tracing the well-loved planes of her body until she squirmed, begged him.

"Do you have any idea how amazing it is to be the person you smile like that for? Everyone follows your eyes and sees me and they probably think _seriously? She could do way better_." Castle breathes out against her ear, his eyes still on their kids as they're seated at the table with all the other children.

Kate flushes and lifts up on tiptoe in her sneakers, goes for his mouth. "Don't be an idiot. I bet most of them are wondering just what I did to deserve _you_."

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree." Castle laughs, nudging her over to a booth. From here, they can keep watch over their children surreptitiously. Her husband orders for them both and Kate peels off her gloves and shrugs out of her coat, shakes the spill of curls out over her shoulders.

Their server comes back with coffee and Beckett takes it gratefully, wraps both hands tight around the ceramic mug. Castle slides around the curved end of the booth to come in against her side and nuzzle at her cheek, tastes the heat that blooms there.

"Stop it. Everyone's looking." She huffs, nudging her elbow into the sensitive area underneath his ribs. He gives her a little space, but already he's grabbing for her hand and settling the tangled knot of their knuckles at his thigh.

He's smirking when she glances at him and he takes a slow sip of coffee, quirks an eyebrow. "So what? I'm not ashamed of finding my wife attractive."

"I'm not ashamed of you either, but come on. This is about the kids. Let's not make another one right here in the booth."

That earns her a snort of laughter and she flushes, both embarrassment and pride for at least being the one to make him laugh like that. Before he gets a chance to formulate a response Santa shows up and the children seated at the long table erupt in riotous delight.

Jack turns over his shoulder to glance at his parents and Kate flutters her fingers at her son in reassurance, holds his gaze steadily until he turns back to join in with his sister and the others.

"How are things looking in terms of gifts?" Kate hums to her husband, leans back against the leather seat.

Castle takes another sip of coffee to collect his thoughts and rests an arm along the back of the booth, his fingers trailing down to play with the soft baby hairs at her nape. "Everything's accounted for, except a last couple of things for you, babe."

"Good. Stockings and everything done?"

"Yeah. You said you had some ideas?" Castle says, his face empty of all judgement. So she doesn't really have time for Christmas shopping. It's not a crime to want to spend the precious time she gets outside of work with her family, throwing herself into being a good wife and mother.

Her husband _does_ have time for this sort of thing, and what's more he enjoys it. It's an unspoken, mutual agreement they've formed, one that she knows is suspect to judgement from the outside. But whatever. Like so many of the small details of their family life, it works for them. And that's what matters.

"I'm gonna try and pick them up when Alexis and I go shopping on Wednesday. But if not I can give you a list?"

"Sure." He smiles at her, anything more he might have said interrupted by their server. Kate takes her fruit salad gratefully, her stomach still a little fragile after throwing up. Too fragile by far for the bacon and eggs that Castle is already tucking into at her side.

Kate curls her hand around his knee and squeezes gently, glances over at their kids again. The two of them have full access to a breakfast buffet served by the elves, and they seem quite content.

"So what does the big day look like this year?"

Castle swallows a mouthful of food, almost chokes and Kate can't help but roll her eyes at him. "I already said to Mother, Alexis and your father that they're welcome to join us for whatever portion of it. I think Mother wants to stay the night, be there for the early morning stockings and everything. Alexis and Eli will be there for lunch."

"Dad staying at the cabin?" Kate asks, can't help but feel guilty for not already knowing the answer.

Castle shrugs and kisses her cheek, goes back to his breakfast. "I don't know, sweetheart. We left it pretty open-ended, so I told him to finalise it with you."

"Oh, you did?" Kate can't help but grin at that, offers him a strawberry from her bowl like a reward. "I'll call him, then. See what he says. I know it hurts him still, Rick, but I really do think the kids can help drag him out of it."

"I know, love. Whatever you want is fine by me, you know that. We get you this year, and that's more than enough."

"Thank you, Castle. For not letting me. . .ruin the magic. Look how much fun they're having." She gestures towards them with her fork, her face lifting into a smile when she sees the rapt attention both Jack and Bea are lavishing on Santa.

Castle growls at her and comes in for her mouth, kisses her hard. Their teeth clash and Kate huffs a breath of laughter, gentles the kiss as best she can. "Don't do that, Katherine Beckett. Don't pretend our kids don't worship you. You're everything to them."

"No, I know. I just mean, thanks for not letting my absence ruin it for them last year."

"You made up for it in so many ways." He shrugs at her, turns back to his breakfast with what seems like superhuman effort. She's never been one to seek reassurance but when it comes to this, their family, she needs it.

Her kids are wonderful, more understanding than she could have dared hope for, but even so the precinct brings more guilt than the solace it offered her for so long. "I'm really glad it's you I'm doing this with."

"No one else, Kate. Not ever." He says, with so much seriousness that her heart lurches into her throat. Kate nods, spots the elves trying to arrange the children into a line to take turns sitting in Santa's lap.

Jack and Bea are whispering something, dark heads bent together, and then they both glance up at her. She smiles, stifles the surprise when Jack comes towards her and climbs right up into her lap. "Mommy, will you come with us?"

"Of course I will, my sweet boy. Daddy, will you be okay here?"

"I'm fine." Castle nods at her, grins wide and entirely honest. "You go with our son."

Jack takes her hand in his and tugs her up out of the booth, leads her over to where his sister waits. Bea grabs for her other hand and Kat follows, the kids bouncing around and almost wrenching her arms right out of their sockets a couple of times. But that's fine, doesn't matter. They want her here to share in their magic. . .she'll do anything to be that for them.


	16. Chapter 16

**Monday, December 16****th**

* * *

"Alright, Little Bean." Castle leans down over top of the couch to press a kiss to his daughter's hair, startling her away from the morning cartoons. Kate went to the precinct a little later today, was able to drop Jack at school on her way, and so both Castle and Bea are still in their pyjamas. "Let's take Snicks to the park. Come on. It snowed overnight, baby."

"We can do a snowman?" She turns her chin up to him, hooks little fingers around his ears.

Hmm, might not be enough snow for that. "We can certainly try, pumpkin. And then maybe we can bring lunch to the precinct for everyone. What do you think?"

"We take Snicket to the precinct, Daddy?" The dog's ears prick up at his name and he lifts his head from his paws, lifts an eyebrow at Rick as if in question.

Castle laughs and leans down to scratch behind the dog's ear, retracts his hand before the hot swipe of pink tongue can meet his palm. Nuh-uh, nothing doing. No one gets to lick him except Kate. "No, we'll drop him off home first."

"Okay. Can I wear my new coat?"

After breakfast yesterday, the four of them meandered a little way down the street until Bea caught sight of a mannequin in a store window, modelling a trench coat. It's a vibrant red, a miniature version of one of her mother's favourites, and both Bea and Castle decided immediately that she had to have it. Kate had rolled her eyes, sure, but he didn't miss the flush of quiet pride in her cheeks.

"Of course you can. You can even show Cap if you like." He offers his daughter, hooking his fingers underneath her armpits to lift her up over the back of the couch and usher her towards the stairs. "You go get dressed and so will I, okay. Don't forget your teeth."

"I not forget. I brush them so good, Daddy." Bea giggles, grinning wide at him as if to show them off. Not for the first time, his guts threaten to spill out onto the hardwood when he thinks about everything that Kate has given him.

"Hey, Beanie Ella?" He calls out, stifles a laugh when his daughter does a pirouette on one sock-clad foot to face him again. "I love you."

"Love you too, Daddy." She beams at him, scurrying off upstairs without a second glance. But Castle stands for a moment more, arrested in the middle of his living room as past and present coalesce in his mind. The dark-haired little girl disappearing around the corner like a ghost of his eldest child, flashes of red hair still sometimes in his peripheral vision.

He adores Alexis, he does, wouldn't change anything about her, but not for the first time he finds himself wishing that she was Kate's. It seems almost unfair that his youngest two have such an amazing, incredible mother, and he feels immensely guilty for not being able to give his eldest daughter that.

Castle takes a quick shower, throws on jeans and a button down. Inspecting his jaw in the mirror, he decides he can go another day without shaving. He doesn't look too unkempt, and, yeah, Kate likes the stubble. Kate likes to rake her teeth over the stubble.

Could be fun to tease her with it at the precinct. Just a little bit. Rick wanders upstairs in search of his daughter, finds her in the bathroom combing through her hair. It's getting long, loose curls that spill midway down her back, and Castle rests his hip against the counter to watch her finish up.

"You want a braid or something, baby girl?"

His daughter shakes her head at him, tugs open the drawer with all the barrettes and hair ties and the other paraphernalia a four year old needs. He won't pretend he doesn't know what to do with it – he did raise Alexis alone after all – but playing hair shop is mostly Kate's terrain now. Sometimes Alexis comes over and all three of them play together.

"No Daddy. I want a hairband. The red with the bow." She pouts at him, casts pitiful eyes to the drawer, and he can't help but laugh.

Scooping her up, Rick balances his daughter against his hip, an arm curled around her waist to keep her safe as he rummages around with his other hand. He finds the hairband and slides it on for her, makes sure it's secure before he lets her go running off.

She comes back with her pumps in hand, the dress and tights combo she picked out clashing horribly, but no matter. She chose it herself; this is her style for today. Who is he to complain?

He can only hope that as she grows up she'll inherit her mother's natural grace, the casual way that Kate seems to pick out clothes and somehow look absolutely, breathtakingly perfect in them.

"Did you brush your teeth, Beatrice?" Castle calls down the hallway, his daughter's little face appearing from her bedroom with her nose all wrinkled up. Ah, right, she really hates being called by her full name. His little girl shrugs at him and he frowns, takes a step closer. "Beatrice Eleanor Castle. Did you brush your teeth?"

"No." She huffs dramatically, storming past him on her way to the bathroom. She closes the door in his face and he leans back against the wall next to it, laughs into the cup of his palm. God help them all when they have teenage Bea to contend with.

But then, with Kate Beckett as her mother, maybe it won't be so bad. If anyone can corral her, it's his wife.

* * *

The elevator doors open and Castle grabs for his daughter's hand before she can charge into the bullpen. It's pretty safe most of the time, and he did text to check that the coast was clear beforehand, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. God knows what kind of lowlife could be lurking around the corner.

With Bea tugging hard against the end of his arm and bags of takeout clutched in his other hand, Castle makes his way through the bullpen and settles down in his chair. "Good afternoon, Detective Beckett."

"Hey there." Kate grins, opens her arms to the girl trying to climb up into her lap. Bea squirrels her way into her mother's embrace and sighs contentedly, her eyes already fluttering closed.

"I'm wearing your coat, Mommy." The sleepy girl murmurs, reaching up two fingers to tangle in the spill of Kate's hair over her shoulders. Beckett laughs and splays her palm between their daughter's shoulder blades, her thumb circling over and over the ridge of bone.

"I see you. It's very pretty, baby girl."

Esposito and Ryan appear from the break room and spot the food first, have to visibly contain themselves in order to choose their niece over their stomachs. "Yo, Castles."

"Tío! Uncle Kevin!" Bea yells, stretches up her arms for Ryan's hug. The detective lifts Castle's daughter easily and cradles her close, scatters kisses to the crown of the girl's head.

Esposito leans back against Kate's desk and rummages around in one of the food containers, fishes out the beef noodles he loves so much. Tucking in, he grins at Castle from around a mouthful of food and then swallows hard. "How's Jack? Feeling better?"

"Oh yeah, fine." Castle nods, finds Kate's food and passes it over before he starts on his own. "They bounce back fast. Hey, you guys should come for dinner soon. He misses you."

"Sure, yeah. Sounds great." Esposito nods, glances down at a sharp tug of his pants from his niece. "You okay, _haba_?"

"I'm thirsty, Tío." She bats her eyes at him, the perfect rosebud of her mouth parting a little.

Castle shares a glance with his wife, has to fight not to roll his eyes, but neither of them intervenes. It's pretty funny to watch how easily their daughter can wrap Javier around her finger. And it's not just Bea either; Jackson and both of the Ryan girls turn Esposito to mush just as effectively.

"Let's go to the vending machine then, cariño. Get you a drink."

Bea takes her uncle's hand and tugs him to his feet, reaches for Ryan as well. Okay, so apparently she needs both of them to accompany her. It affords him the opportunity to check on his wife, so he can't quite bring himself to care.

When the three of them disappear around the corner, the picture they make almost comical with the two strong detectives tugged forward by the dark-haired wisp of a girl, Castle settles into his chair and tugs Kate's towards him until their knees touch. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. Just a little more tired than usual, I guess. Still catching up." Beckett shrugs at him, takes a bite of her noodles. Rick nods, won't push for any more than that. It's more than he expected at all, honestly.

"I'm glad. How's your morning? You guys caught a case, right?"

Kate swallows her mouthful and grins at him, strokes her thumb over the back of his hand. "We did, yeah. But it's pretty simple. An actual mugging gone wrong, for once."

"Ah, so not Beckett flavoured?"

"No." She smirks at him, wheels her chair back a little. And he knows it's because she can't help but touch him when he's this near, doesn't want to seem unprofessional in the precinct, so the move earns her a laugh rather than the offense it maybe would have done once.

The boys come back with Bea, offer drinks all around and then disappear back to their desks with the rest of their food. Castle's daughter climbs up into her father's arms, blinks shyly at her mother from around his bicep. "Alright, sweet girl. We should probably head home, let Mommy do her work."

Bea's lower lip trembles but she doesn't let the tears spill, resolutely slips down from his lap and goes for her mother's arms instead. Kate clutches their daughter close, strokes slender fingers through her hair and murmurs against her ear. A last kiss to her cheek, and then Beckett sets her daughter back on her feet and snags Castle's hand instead, draws him down for a kiss.

He keeps it tender, close-mouthed, one hand firmly ensconced in Bea's so the option to migrate to Kate's cheek as well is robbed from him. Letting his wife go reluctantly, Castle scoops his daughter up and holds her as she burrows in close, smoothes his hand up and down her spine.

This is always the worst part. Leaving the precinct, leaving Kate behind if only for a few hours. Castle bends a little to let his daughter press the call button for the elevator, jostles her just a little in his arms and hopes it can help bring her out of her funk before she sinks too far in.

"Hey sweetpea, what do you say we play with blocks this afternoon? See who can build the biggest tower."

"Okay Daddy." She smiles for him, presses the cold ridge of her nose into his neck. The elevator doors open and he steps inside, turns around in time for Bea to wave at her mother. Kate waves back, her face wide open on a soft smile, and Castle presses a kiss to his daughter's cheek.

"We can do some colouring too, if you want. Maybe we could draw for Mommy."

"Okay."

"Beanie Ella," he sighs, tightens his arms around her just a little. "Mommy will be home in just a few hours. And then maybe you and she can play hair shop or something. Don't be sad, baby girl."

"I wish Mommy was always playing with me." His daughter sighs, but she understands why that can't be, he knows she does. They've talked about it often enough.

"I know you do, Little Bean. But do you think you and I can have so much fun that you forget about missing Mommy until she comes home?"

He gets a solemn nod from his daughter at that and she chews on her lip, squirms to get down. "Yes Daddy. You are so fun like Mommy. You can 'stract me."

Yeah. He has some experience distracting daughters from the gaping hole of an absent mother.


	17. Chapter 17

**Tuesday, December 17****th**

* * *

Kate debates for a while and then shrugs, decides not to call him. He was up before she was this morning, fingers already working furiously at the keys of his laptop, and he barely roused when she bent to kiss his cheek. The case doesn't seem to be too exciting, nothing they haven't seen before, so she won't bother to disturb him.

And, yeah. . .things feel a little bit off between them. Last night when she got home he seemed almost mad at her, colder than usual anyway. They made love, but he kept his eyes closed most of the time and when he came the wash of breath against her shoulder didn't take the form of her name.

She doesn't really know what, if anything, she's done to upset him. Maybe he'll tell her, maybe he'll just get over it. Either way, it's only encouraging the notion that the best course of action today is to let him be. Clearly he needs a little space from her.

"You okay, honey?" Lanie glances up at her, furrows her brows.

Kate bites at her bottom lip and tries to shake herself out of it, crouches down next to the medical examiner. "Yeah. Sorry. What do we have?"

* * *

When his wife gets home, the kids are already in bed. He made sure of it, an inexplicable burning need to talk with her consuming him all day long. He's not mad at her, not really.

It's just. . .hard. Doing this alone. For the most part, it works well for them, but with the lights and the decorations and the city-wide enrapture with festivity-

The whole season is supposed to be about family, about sharing the joy with the people he loves. And he doesn't really get to. It's not even that he expects her to change anything; he understands that really she can't. More than anything he seeks reassurance. That she's not doing it on purpose.

For all of her pregnancy with Jack, Castle was paralysed with fear. That one day she'd wake up and realise she was trapped in a life she never really wanted. Realise that she could do so much better than him.

"Hey babe." She offers him, shucking out of her coat and hanging it in the closet before she comes to join him on the couch. Kate unzips her heeled boots and drops them to the floor, draws her legs up underneath her. "How was your day?"

"Okay. I'm almost done with the book, I think. I'll start edits next week."

"That was fast." She smiles at him, comes in a little closer to his side. Not close enough, though. Seems timid, even.

Castle gives up all pretences. Even when he's scared of losing her, even when he's losing faith that this wonderful thing they have can last, he loves her so much. "Helps to have designated writing days, you know?"

"Good. That's good. And are you. . .okay?"

"Kate, you're happy, right?" He blurts out, his guts spilling all over the floor. They might as well get this over with. It's so, so stupid of him. Will probably scare her away, but he needs to know.

His wife's jaw goes slack with shock, her throat working over silence as she stares at him. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean. . .I know this isn't really what you imagined for yourself. The marriage and kids thing." Castle shrugs, stares down at his hands. Oh God, what is he doing? She's going to walk out of her right now and never look back.

Rick holds his breath and slams his eyes closed, waits for the inevitable. Instead, the cool touch of Kate's fingers comes to his cheeks, her thumbs ghosting over the paper thin skin under his eyes. Her head bows so her forehead meets his and her breath washes heavy over his chin.

"What are you saying? You think I'm not happy?"

"I. . .would understand. I mean, you said yourself when you got pregnant with Jack that this was never what you imagined for your future."

Kate growls and claims his mouth in a bruising kiss, her teeth nipping at him a little harder than usual. The fire comes up from her belly and pours into him, the lithe length of her body settling in his lap. Her thighs bracket his hips, tight and hot, and her chest heaves. "Castle, baby, no. Oh, Rick. That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean?" He begs her, closes his eyes again so the hot tears can't slip down his face.

His wife lets out a noise that could be a sob and curls her palms around his ears, the rush of ocean soothing him. She used to do that with Bea when the girl was crying hard. "I meant that this is better than anything I could have imagined for myself. I never thought I'd be worthy of someone who loves as fiercely as you do."

"I just want for you to be happy." He murmurs, slides a hand up underneath the fabric of her shirt. Kate shudders and drapes her arms over his shoulders, sits back on his thighs. The warmth of arousal pools low in his stomach and he grits his teeth, forces himself to gentle his touch.

They can't solve this with sex. The shift and glide of her body over his is wonderful, yes, but only works as a momentary reassurance. And he needs. . .forever, with her.

"I've never been so happy. My whole life. Even when my mom was alive. It's never been like this. Castle, seriously? I spent the weekend throwing up, and I was still happier than on the best day before I met you."

Her eyes catch his and hold on tight, won't let him break away. She's so gorgeous like this, fierce and lit up as she fights for them. God, he really doesn't deserve this woman. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Kate. You have to know it's not you that I doubt, it's me."

"It's not you, it's me?" Kate raises an eyebrow at him, purses her lips. "You breaking up with me, Rick?"

"No." He grits out, hauls her in against his chest. "Never letting you go, Kate Castle. Love you far too much for that."

"Castle." She sits back again, cups his cheek in her palm. "I want this to work as badly as you do. So if I did have a problem, I'd tell you. I promise. Drag you to counselling to figure it out before it destroyed us."

"It's just- I know we're still trying to figure out the balance. I know it's hard for you to drag yourself away from a case to make it home for dinner."

"No." She growls at him, sorrow cascading down her face. "Is that what you think? _Shit_. I'm really screwing this up, huh?"

"Screwing what up?"

Kate slides off his thighs and stands, holds out a hand for him. "Our lives. Rick, I love my job, you know that. But when it comes down to a choice between a case and you, our family? Well there's no contest. You three win every time, you must know that."

"I'm being an idiot."

"Yeah, kinda." She laughs at him, comes up on tiptoe to push her mouth against his once more. "Come shower with me. Help me wash the precinct grime off."

"Mm, okay." He manages a smile, trails her into the bathroom. Kate flicks on the lights and turns the dimmer switch way down low, turns back to him with shadow playing across the planes of her face.

His_ wife_. Sometimes it still hits him like a punch to the gut. After all the work they put in, all the times they hurt each other, he's the one who gets to reach out now and unfasten the buttons of her shirt. One at a time, punctuating each careful movement with the touch of his mouth to hers.

"I guess I just can't believe you chose me."

Kate frowns at him a little, slides her palms up underneath his shirt to ghost her thumbs over his ribcage. "Castle, there could never be anyone else. You and me, we're right. We fit."

"We fit." He echoes, grinning down at her. This is. . .not the first time he's been paralysed with fear that she'll grow tired of him someday. But every time, Kate somehow figures out exactly what he needs and offers it up to him. The right words, and that's just amazing. Considering how fiercely she guarded her heart from him in the beginning, to have her lay it bare for him now still takes his breath away.

Tongue nudging out from between her lips, Kate flicks open the top button of his shirt, drops her hand to his belt. "Come on, Rick. Show me how well we fit together."

* * *

Later, lying in bed with the naked length of her body pressed to her husband's side as he sleeps, Kate lets the hot tears spill down her cheeks. How much he still doubts her just breaks her heart. Castle behaves as if he had to coerce her into marrying him, getting pregnant, but that's not it at all.

She was the one who threw away her birth control pills. She was the one that wept with joy when the pregnancy test showed up positive. This life that Castle gave her is so far beyond anything she ever dared hope for that yes, it scares her. Because if she were to lose it all now? She wouldn't survive that.

Slipping quietly out from between the sheets, Kate tugs on a fresh pair of underwear and her husband's button down and pads quietly through to the living room. The dog lies asleep on his back, seems afloat on the red pillow of his bed as his dreams wrap their gentle caress over him.

Kate heads for the stairs and climbs them slowly, skipping the seventh step so it doesn't creak and wake anyone. The soft velvet of the darkness comes in close against her skin, smooth and lovely, and Kate falters in the hallway a moment. The house, their home, is so peaceful like this. So amazing.

Her son's bedroom door is ajar and she pushes on it slowly, steps inside and moves to kneel at the bedside of her little boy as he sleeps. The slope of his nose, the full and healthy curve of his cheeks and the spill of sleep-sweaty curls over his forehead all coalesce into this one, perfect being. Her son.

Worth all of it. Every battle, every time she felt like giving up. All the times she thought she'd never make it here. But she did, she forced her way through the sucking quagmire of doubt and into the harbour of Castle's arms. Kate leans in to kiss Jack's forehead and draws in the so-familiar scent of him before she stands.

Moving next to her daughter's room, Kate's mouth opens into a smile at the sight of her baby girl all crumpled up and half-out from underneath the sheets. Some protective instinct urges her to arrange the blanket more securely over the girl, but she pushes it back. Bea's fine, they're both fine, these wonderful children that she and Castle made together.

Suddenly, she needs to see him. Kate forces herself to move slowly through the hall and down the stairs, shifts as easily as a ghost through their office and into the bedroom. Castle hasn't moved since she left, the thickness of his body like a patch of a more solid darkness. Kate slides into bed and comes up against his side, curls her arm low around his waist.

Okay, yes, so if you asked twenty two year old Kate, fresh from the academy, if she'd ever end up married with two kids, she might have laughed in your face. But this, what they have now?

She wouldn't trade it for anything.


	18. Chapter 18

**Wednesday, December 18****th**

* * *

"Hey." Kate pulls the door open and ushers Alexis into the loft. "Come in. I'm just fixing Jack's lunch for him to take to school. Your dad's upstairs with Bea if you want to say hello."

Alexis laughs and drops her bag down by the door, shrugs out of her coat and unwinds the brilliant emerald scarf from around her neck. "You sure you don't need any help?"

"No, I got it. Thanks." Kate laughs, moving back towards the kitchen and fluttering her fingers at Alexis in dismissal. The younger woman shrugs and moves towards the stairs and Kate rolls her shoulders, pulls open the fridge. "Jack-Jack, ham or cheese?"

"Ham please, Mommy." Her son says, glancing up from his colouring book where he sits at the kitchen island. Alexis does an about-turn and comes back to hug her brother, presses a smacking kiss to the top of his head. "Hello Lexis."

"Hey buddy. When does Christmas break start?"

"Friday." Jack grins, glancing to his mother for confirmation. Kate nods at him and he turns back to his big sister, beams at her.

Alexis smiles back, heads towards the stairs again. "Fantastic. I'm gonna go say hi to Daddy and Bea."

"Okay." Jack nods, his attention already refocusing on his colouring. Kate finishes up with his sandwich and covers it in saran wrap, packs his lunch into his lunch bag for him. It's shaped like a ladybird and Bea has a matching one that's a bee, gifts from the kids' grandmother.

When she's done, Kate comes around the counter to sit next to her son and settles a palm between his shoulder blades. His skin is so warm through the fabric of his shirt and Kate thinks back to those first hours in the hospital, this squirming, hot little thing rooting against her chest. Castle pale with relief and her own body still trembling with left-over fear.

Her little boy came too early to meet them, but it's okay. It _was_ okay. Before the rest of the family showed up to meet Jackson, Kate and Rick got to have a few precious hours to learn every inch of their son. The absolute overwhelming love that slammed into Kate the second she held her baby in her arms stole her breath, has never quite dissipated.

Anything, anything at all that either of them needs she will do. "Hey there, buddy. What do you have?"

"Elves." Jack turns his chin up to her and she leans in to kiss his forehead, presses her cheek close against his to look down at the picture with him. "For Papa."

"He'll love it." Kate assures him, turns her nose to his hair to draw in the crisp scent of his apple shampoo. Today, for her, has to be about reassuring Castle that their family is everything to her, fills her with love that spills over as if from a too small cup.

So, where's her husband?

"I'm gonna go see what's happening upstairs. You want to stay here and finish your picture?"

Jack nods, his lip caught between his teeth as he concentrates. That steady focus, the determination and the seriousness, all of that's hers. So she owes it to him, doesn't she, to try and show him that it's okay to relax sometimes. Castle's great with him, fills his whole life with fun, but then he has a lot of practice. Spent years doing that for her before she could admit just how much she needs him.

"Alright, baby. I'll tell them to hurry, don't worry. They won't make you late." And he never even said anything out loud, but Kate doesn't miss the wash of relief through her son.

Maybe. . .yeah. She can do this for him, instead. Be the one that can give him what he needs to feel calm, comfortable. She understands him, she's his mother. He needs her. Jack turns to smile at her, presses a little palm to her cheek. "Thank you, Mommy. I love you."

"I love you too, my sweet boy."

Swallowing the thick clog of emotion in her throat, Kate slides off of the stool and heads for the stairs. As she reaches the top of the staircase the noise of her family rushes in to greet her and she laughs, shakes her head. In the kids' bathroom, Alexis sits on the closed lid of the toilet with Bea standing between her legs, nimble fingers weaving a braid into the girl's thick hair.

"Hey guys. Where's Dad?"

"Kate." His voice calls out from Bea's room, sounds a little panicked. "Help."

Kate rolls her eyes and leaves her daughter in the bathroom with Alexis, the two of them seeming quite content. In Bea's bedroom, she finds her husband standing helplessly in front of the closet and she comes in close, wraps her arms around his waist and rests her cheek to his shoulder blade. "What's happening?"

"Beanie Ella is spending the morning with my mother and she said she needs her favourite dress up costume to take with her. But I don't know which one that is and she won't tell me." He groans, circles her wrist with his fingers to peel her off of him and bring her around to his side.

Lifting up on tiptoe, Kate presses a soft kiss to his mouth and flutters her fingers against his cheek, drops back to flat feet only when he lets go of some of the anxiety. "It changes every day, crazy girl. But this morning I heard her telling Jack that when he comes home from school he has to duel with her."

"Oh!" Castle beams at her, rummages in their daughter's closet for the right costume. He holds it up as if for inspection and Kate nods, stupidly proud of him. "A knight."

"Uh-huh. Caught her trying to ride Snicket like a horse yesterday, too." Kate shrugs, holds open their daughter's backpack for Castle to drop the faux chainmail vest inside.

"Helmet and sword aren't gonna fit in there. We'll take the car service, then, carry them separately." He says, zips the bag closed.

Kate circles his waist with her arms again, takes a moment just to nuzzle in against his chest. Mm, he still has that same scent that came in close and curled its seductive fingers around her the second time they met, at his book party. Only now, it carries an extra touch of familiarity and home that makes her want to soak in it.

"You need me to fix her a snack?" She murmurs, slides a hand into his back pocket and squeezes just a little.

Her husband jolts, his mouth coming down hard against the top of her head as he growls into her hair. "Stop it. No time. And no, Mother said she'll fix lunch for her."

"Okay. Your son's worried that he's going to be late." Kate lifts an eyebrow and somehow, by some miracle, manages to step back from him. "So Alexis and I will leave now. Stop distracting you."

"Alright. Buy something sexy. And, uh, I guess I can't really tell you to monitor what Alexis buys, huh?" He grumbles, but she sees that it's for show. Probably a ploy to have her kiss him again, but there really is no time.

"Rick, she's twenty nine. Has a son of her own. I think your right to tell her what to do expired a long time ago." Kate smirks at him and strides out of the room, finds Alexis hovering awkwardly outside Bea's door. "Hey."

"Hi. I didn't want to. . .interrupt anything. You ready to go?" The girl – woman – spits out, glances at the door as if she could see right through it to her father.

Kate laughs and shakes her head, hooks her arm through Alexis'. "You don't have to worry about that, Alexis. We weren't doing anything you couldn't have interrupted. And yes, I'm ready. Shall we go?"

"Sure."

* * *

"Oh, Alexis honey, that's the one."

Alexis presses a hand to her mouth and cranes her neck to see the back view of the dress in the mirror. Eli's climbing his way up the corporate ladder and so he has to attend all the events. Christmas is a ball, a black tie affair, and so the dress she picked out is floor length and elegant.

Strapless, which shows off the pale rise of her collar bones, and the deep emerald looks amazing with both her skin and her hair. She lifts the hair away from her neck with a hand, tries to imagine it curled and pinned up. Maybe Kate will help her.

"You think so?"

"You look amazing." Kate nods, comes further into the dressing room with her. "Especially considering you had a baby four months ago. Wow."

Heat rushes to her cheeks and she dips her chin, can't meet Kate's eyes. Somehow, compliments from her father's wife get to her more than from anyone else. Kate is so sincere in everything she does, honest to the point of brutality sometimes, and so when she says that the dress is good, Alexis believes her.

"Thank you, Kate. Shall I just go for it, then?"

"Definitely." Kate laughs, unhooks the fastener at the top of the dress that Alexis had to ask her to do up a moment ago. "And now we have the dress, we can do a more focused search for shoes and accessories, hmm?"

"Right. And for you, too." Alexis laughs. Kate found her own dress a couple of stores back. Hervé Léger, which apparently carries some history between Detective Beckett and Alexis' father.

When Kate opened the curtain and asked, almost shy, what Alexis thought, the younger woman had been utterly speechless. Kate's easy grace and the way the deep aubergine of the dress smoothed over every curve and line of her body would have made Alexis jealous if the woman didn't look so unsure of herself.

It's been that way all day, actually. Kate a little too eager to please. It's not like her; makes Alexis feel a little unsettled.

"I think I have heels already that would probably go just fine, but it's always good to have an excuse to buy shoes, right?" Kate laughs, stepping out of the dressing room to let Alexis slip out of her dress. Holding her own eyes in the mirror, Alexis frowns and tries to bolster her courage.

She should ask. There've been a couple of moments today where Kate's opened her mouth as if to confess something and then slammed it closed again, her hands in fists at her sides. Alexis pulls on her jeans and sweater again, shrugs her way into her coat and steps into her shoes before she comes back out of the dressing room.

Kate makes as if to go and Alexis takes a deep breath, grabs for her wrist. "Kate, are you okay?"

"I'm. . .yes and no." Detective Beckett shrugs, seems ashamed. "Your dad thinks I'm going to leave him because he can't possibly be good enough and I'm trying to figure out the best way to show him how ridiculous that is."

_Oh_. Wow. Alexis wasn't really expecting that outpouring of honesty. "I'm so sorry, Kate. Mom and Gina sort of. . .screwed him over. But you have to know it's not you, right? God, Kate, he adores you. I've never seen him love _anyone_ the way he does you."

"I know he does. I do love him too. And I'm doing my best to show him that."

Alexis can't help but laugh at that, pulls Kate in for a hug. "You're kidding, right? You two are kinda gross with how much you love each other. He knows you do, Kate. He's just worried that he won't measure up."

"What can I do to convince him that he'll always be enough?"

"I don't know. Just keep reminding him, I guess? You know Dad, he needs the words." Alexis shrugs, steps back from the hug but curls her arm through Kate's to lead her out onto the store floor.

"You're right. Yeah. Thank you, Alexis." Kate manages a smile for her and Alexis squeezes her fingers in the crook of the older woman's arm.

"No problem. I kinda like seeing Dad this happy. Anything I can do to help keep it that way, just let me know."


	19. Chapter 19

**Thursday, December 19****th**

* * *

Things are better today.

Yesterday, his wife came home from shopping with Alexis and cooked dinner for their family with him, the two of them in an orchestrated dance around the kitchen. And the whole time, she buoyed him with looks and soft touches and the brush of her mouth.

Those things don't come particularly naturally to her; she has to work at it. And she did, she tried. For him, because she knows how he needs it. She stayed at his side all night, helped with bathing the kids and putting them to bed.

The four of them curled up in his and Kate's bed and he read to his children with his wife's warm body pressed close against him. It's not like her to be clingy, but he's trying not to let it worry him. It is, after all, his fault that they're having to reorient themselves again.

Once the kids were in bed, Kate curled up in his arms on the couch and watched a movie. Well, really, Kate smoothed her thumb over the back of his hand and watched the ripples of his skin, seemed almost fascinated by him.

And then this morning she went in to work a little later, late enough that the four of them were able to have breakfast together at the island. She laughed with their children, fed him blueberries from the end of her fork, was an altogether lighter incarnation of his wife.

He hates himself for it, but it's not what he wants. Not for her to have to try so hard. He wants her to be herself, the woman he loves so desperately much.

The book is done and he's sort of in limbo, waiting for Gina to get back to him with her edits. Usually they aim for a September release but it'll probably end up being considerably earlier this year. Next year. Castle steps carefully around a puddle and tugs on the dog's leash, draws Snicket back in closer to his side.

Frost nips hard at the few areas of his skin left open to the elements, his cheeks stiff with it. Burying his chin a little closer into his scarf, Rick flexes his fingers and huffs out a breath that clouds in front of him. The dog leaps happily at the end of the extendable leash and Castle clicks the button, gives him a little more slack. Today is, really, his last chance to make sure Kate's okay before they come up against the insurmountable wall that is Christmas.

The precinct party tomorrow and then the kids have winter break, which means not a moment to themselves. And, truly, he doesn't mind that. He adores his kids, throws himself wholeheartedly into playing with them and watching them grow and learn and explore.

Just- he wouldn't mind a little time for just him and his wife. Castle comes up to a fork in the path and takes the route he knows to be shorter. In fact, he might just cut across the grass and have a car come meet him. Take Snicket back to the loft and then call Kate, have her meet him somewhere for lunch. He does love the boys, the precinct as a whole, but right now he needs it to be just him and Kate.

Just his wife.

* * *

Castle makes it to the diner before Kate does, secures a quiet little booth tucked at the back. Away from prying eyes. He waves away the server, doesn't want so much as a coffee before he sees her.

When she does arrive, it's in a flurry of snow and her cheeks are stained an enticing pink with the cold. She spots him in the booth and cuts her way through the blockade of tables to reach him. Rick stands up and cups his palms at her elbows, draws her in to press a tender kiss to her mouth. "Hi."

"Hey." She smiles at him, ushers him to sit and then slides in right next to him. Peeling off her gloves, Kate tucks them into her pocket and unbuttons her coat, huffs a sigh as her cheek meets his shoulder. "Jeez, it's cold."

"Oh. Sorry for pulling you away from the warm."

Kate elbows him hard and sits back up, turns to look at him with fire brimming in her eyes. "Don't be an idiot. My favourite way to warm up is with you."

Their server comes back and Castle hurries through ordering, pleased to note that Kate picks up on his urgency and doesn't waste any time herself. When the young man leaves them, he opens his mouth to say something mundane, something to disguise his fragile heart, but his wife beats him to it.

"Okay, what's going on? I thought we talked about this." She frowns, but there's no malice in it. Just confusion and the hard edge of panic. Not that she has cause to, he's not going anywhere. But then maybe. . .huh, yeah. She probably doesn't know that for sure.

"I love you, Kate. I love this life that you've given me."

A peculiar mix of sorrow and joy washes over her face and she cups his face in her palms, looks as if she wants to do much more than that. "So do I. I love you too."

"I know you do. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me." He grits out, closes his eyes against the shame. Kate circles her thumb against his cheekbone and then lets him go, burrows in close to his side instead.

"The festive season, right? All about playing happy families. But we don't have to play, Rick. We _are_ a happy family. Aren't we?"

He almost chokes on a sob, wraps his arm around her shoulders to keep her close. "Of course we are. Yeah. I guess it's just too good to be true."

"Do you know what someone really smart taught me once?" She hums to him, traces the circle of condensation around the ice water their server brought them. The moisture gathers on the tip of her finger and she lifts it to his mouth, lets him kiss it away.

"No, what?"

"That you can't live life waiting for the other shoe to drop. That the risk is worth it."

Oh, wow. Sometimes he forgets how much she loves his words, how she collects them like precious pearls to string together and wear with pride. "I know. I do, mostly. It's just so good, Kate. I feel like I can't possibly deserve any of it."

"I know. I feel the same way sometimes, you know that? Like one day someone will come along and snatch the rug out from underneath me. But until then, I'm throwing myself into loving our family." She says slowly, her palm coming to settle against his thigh. Even through his pants he can feel the chill of her fingers, drops his own hand to cover hers and offer some warmth.

"You are?"

"I am." She nods, her crown hitting his chin. "So, Castle? No more of this doubt. That's done with. Okay? Do you think you can let it go?"

"Yeah. I think so. If you help distract me."

He earns himself a laugh for that and his wife sits up a little, must sense that he's okay now. Already. Just the measured precision of her words, the way she tugs hard on the threads of his insecurity to sure up the weeping wound inside him.

"Precinct party, tomorrow. Do you think your mom will take the kids overnight?"

Castle laughs, darts in to press a burst of a kiss against her mouth. "I think we have a better chance if you're the one to ask. You know she adores you, Katherine."

"Right. Okay. I'll call her." His wife grins, their server showing up right on time to catch the fullness of her smile. The boy seems a little startled but he returns her smile, if a little hesitantly. He sets the food down in front of them and Castle offers his thanks, steals a French fry from Kate's basket before she can protest.

They're fine. More than, in fact. They're wonderful.

* * *

Walking hand in hand back to the precinct, Kate sticks close to Castle's side and lets the fortress of his body offer all the warmth and shelter she needs. He's not wearing gloves, and his bare thumb smoothes over the skin of her wrist. Something vaguely hypnotic about it, actually, and she almost stumbles right into an icy puddle.

"I thought we could take the kids to the library on Sunday, maybe? They have that Christmas exhibition." He offers, stepping closer into her side to let a woman with a stroller past.

Kate turns her smile into him, presses the lift of her happiness to his cheek. He seems better already, lighter, and those creases of joy are back at the corners of his eyes. "That sounds great, yeah. They'll love it."

"I thought so." He shrugs, leading her to wait at the crossing. The precinct looms on the other side of the street and Kate sighs, tries to push down the hesitation. She just wants to spend the rest of the day with him now, see what other ways she can find to convince him of her devotion.

"Castle, you wanna come up? You busy?"

He startles a little and tugs her across the street as the sign switches to walk. When they hit the opposite sidewalk, he pulls her in towards the side of a building and settles her against it, shields her from the flow of foot traffic with the press of his body. "You're sure?"

"Of course. Case isn't all that exciting, though."

He grins, steals a kiss from her. "I'll make it exciting, don't you worry Detective Beckett."

Kate lifts up to lace her fingers behind his neck, cants her hips into his as well. Fingers a little stiff with the kiss of winter come to bracket her waist and Castle tastes her mouth again. Slowly, carefully, as if she's something new to be discovered.

It's actually sweeter, more tender and shy than their first kiss. Either one, undercover or rain-soaked. Breaking away from his mouth, Kate shares a quiet laugh with him and laces their fingers again. The precinct had a major overhaul a couple years back, so when the automatic doors slide open a wall of heat smacks into them as they step into the lobby.

Beckett puts her gun and watch in the tray and steps through the scanner, turns around at the other side to watch Castle come through the frame to meet her. It's a little inconvenient, she won't lie, but after the absolute paralytic terror of the bomb scare no one really minds.

Trapped at her desk, no one in the whole building allowed to move a muscle as the bomb squad worked, Kate stayed on the phone with him the whole time. He gave her a running commentary of their baby daughter's activity, Bea only a few months old at the time, and tears spilled over her cheeks as she tried to reconcile herself with never coming home to them again.

Obviously, the building didn't blow and everyone was fine. But the reassurance of the amped-up security is not unwelcome. When her husband reaches her, Kate slips her hand in his as they move for the elevator. The doors open and they step on, his arm curling low around her waist.

"You're thinking about it, aren't you?"

It doesn't surprise her that he knows. Not anymore. "Trying not to."

"You're okay. Everyone's okay, Beckett. Especially our family." He grins down at her, tucks an errant curl behind her ear and traces the silvery line that Tyson left on her cheekbone. Ten years ago now, but sometimes still she remembers the look on Castle's face as he shot at the man to save her life.

"Especially us." She lifts up and kisses him again, slides her hand into his pocket a moment. And then the doors open onto the precinct and they step off. Together.


	20. Chapter 20

**Friday, December 20****th**

* * *

Castle's mother arrives right on cue, for once, and he ushers her inside the loft with his shirt still unbuttoned and no solid choice of tie. Shaking her head, his mother lifts an eyebrow but says nothing, waiting on him.

"My children are taking inspiration from their grandmother today. Christmas break, and I don't think they've ever been so excited in their lives." He rolls his eyes and starts buttoning his shirt, crisp and white like a fresh snowfall.

As if they've heard him, both kids come careening down the stairs and straight into their grandmother's arms. His mother somehow manages to gather them both against her and earn a moment of stillness. Castle finishes up with his buttons and turns to face his children, trying to push back the irritation.

Not their fault they're so excited. Under normal circumstances he would be too, but he's so determined to make tonight wonderful for Kate that his patience with the kids is wearing thin. "Did you both get your pyjamas and toothbrushes into your backpacks?"

"Yes, Daddy." Jack says quietly, coming to wrap his arms around Castle's thigh and rest his head there too. Rick sinks down and draws his son in close, presses a kiss to the mess of curly hair.

Jackson nuzzles in close, peers at his grandmother and sister from beneath the fringe of his lashes, and Castle revels in the so-familiar scent of his little boy. His son. "Hey buddy. You sure you're okay with this? Mommy and I can come pick you up after the party if you want."

"No, it's okay. Gram's place is fun."

"Alright, my man." Castle stands up and peels himself slowly away from his son, heads towards his bedroom. "I'll get Mommy to come say goodbye, then."

In their bathroom, his wife stands in front of the mirror in just a towel. She's curled her hair and put it up into this elaborate, lovely thing that makes the pale stretch of her neck seem eternal. A few curls escape to lie against it, the whole thing a siren song calling for his mouth.

"Wow." He breathes out, coming to stand at her side and meet her eyes in the mirror. "Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?"

Kate lifts an eyebrow at him but doesn't shift her focus from the careful application of her mascara. "You may have told me once or twice before." When she finishes up, she sets the tube down and turns to face him, softens into a smile and smoothes her thumb at the freshly-shaved edge of his jaw. "But thank you."

"Any time, Mrs Castle. Kids are ready to head out." He says quietly. She nods and reaches for her robe from the back of the door, drops the towel and slides into it slowly enough that he gets a long look at absolutely everything.

And it's not like he hasn't seen it all before, spent long hours in supplication at the altar of her body, but even so it sends a hot flash of need through him. Please, God, let their kids be content with spending the night at his mother's place. He needs his wife. Loud.

"Your mother won't mind, right?" Kate murmurs, casts a hand through the air in front of her body to make her meaning clear.

Rick laughs, loud and clear, shaking his head at her. "Kate, love, my mother has been seen out in public in far less than that. And she's family, you're fine."

"Right, yeah. Sorry." She echoes his laughter, albeit more timid, and then she follows him out of the room. Their children burrow close into her arms, little noses pressed against her neck. She hasn't gotten around to applying perfume yet so it's just her, the familiar scent of their mother that comes in to greet them.

"Okay, you two. Be good for Gram. Mommy and I will see you at lunchtime tomorrow." He says, herding his children over towards the door. They each shrug their way into a backpack, Bea clutching her favourite stuffed animal of the moment, and then his mother opens the door and ushers them out.

She stops, casts a long look over both of them before her mouth lifts into a smile. "Have fun, you two."

Thankfully, she leaves it there and steps out into the hallway, closing the door after herself. Castle turns to face his wife and takes the chance to dart in for a kiss. After all, she hasn't applied her lipstick yet.

* * *

The precinct party takes place in the precinct itself. Namely because it allows all the officers who are on duty to at least be involved in the festivity, even if they can't drink. The mistletoe has been hanging near the elevator for a couple days now, so Kate takes it as excuse enough to spend the entirety of the ride up to the right floor exploring the hot cavern of her husband's mouth.

Dropping back just in time for the doors to open, Kate takes his hand in hers and comes in close to his side. Not that she needs him to balance or anything like that; even the ridiculous heels she picked out with Alexis are manageable enough for her.

No. She's just missed the heat of his body, and now he's here beside her, dropping comments into the shell of her ear. "Place looks good. You help decorate?"

"Uh-huh. I should go say hello to the captain. You wanna find us a couple drinks?"

"No." He shrugs lightly, kisses her cheek. "We'll both say hello to Gates, and then we'll both get drinks. If that's okay?"

Alright. . .so he's not exactly keen to leave her side tonight. That's fine. If she's honest with herself, she doesn't want him to go either. He's her _husband_, and didn't they work hard enough to get here that they've earned the right to enjoy it now?

Ryan and Jenny appear from the elevator and come to join Kate and Castle, Jenny leaning in to hug both of them. "Kate, you look incredible."

"So do you." Kate offers in return, not at all surprised to find that she truly means it. Kevin's wife is so lovely that it seems to radiate from her, cast everyone around her in the peaceful warmth. A good match for him, she's always thought.

"You seen Javi and Lanie?" Ryan says, glancing around for any sign of the missing pieces of their group.

Castle shakes his head, a palm coming to settle at Kate's spine, between the flare of her hips. "No, but we only just got here. We were just about to go say hello to Gates."

"Mind if we join you?" Ryan directs his question at Kate and she shrugs, laces her fingers through Castle's. Her husband drops a kiss against her temple and then stares down Ryan's wrinkled nose, dares him to challenge their affection.

Usually, she'd shove him away or cut him off with her words, but tonight she just can't. She's missed him, although they haven't spent any more time apart than is ordinary for them. Maybe the nascent hum of expectation between them is to blame, she doesn't know for sure. But she wants him. Badly.

"Your sister looking after the girls?" Kate asks Jenny, her mouth blossoming into a genuine smile. They should spend more time together, she and Jenny and Lanie. Go out for drinks or something in the New Year.

"Yeah. We're returning the favour tomorrow night." Jenny grins. Both Kevin and his wife have several siblings, and so the Ryan girls are part of a large network of cousins. Ryan often returns from family gatherings looking a little worse for wear, full of stories that have Kate wincing in sympathy.

It does bother her, at least sometimes, that her kids don't have that. With both her and Castle only children, they don't have any cousins to grow up alongside, to play with at Christmas and Thanksgiving and the like. But then, they have Brooke and Bethany Ryan. And hopefully, someday, they'll have Lanie and Esposito's kids too.

And Harry, of course. Kate shakes her head to try and snap out of it, catches her husband's confusion in her peripheral vision. "You okay?"

"Yeah, good." She smiles for him, shifts closer to his side. They find Captain Gates in the break room, pouring herself a glass of punch. Apparently it's heavily laced, and from the sway in their captain's body Beckett can't help but doubt that this is her first glass of the stuff.

"Merry Christmas." Gates says to them, lifting her glass in toast. Her husband, a quietly stoic man, comes up to her side and curls an arm around her waist, as much to hold her up as in affection.

Castle grins, the one that paints fissures deep at the corners of his eyes, and he leans in to shake Mr Gates' hand and kiss their captain's cheek. He finds four glasses and pours each of them some punch, takes Kate's free hand in his own once he's handed out the drinks. "Merry Christmas, everyone."

* * *

By the time they make it back to the loft, his wife is more than a little tipsy. She somehow wound up in a drinking contest with Esposito, and although she won, she's still heavy against his side as he pushes through the front door.

The precinct party is arguably his most favourite social event of the year. It's a place he belongs, a place where he doesn't have to keep up the playboy persona or struggle to swallow back the bitter taste of empty platitudes from under his tongue. Instead, he can spend the night watching the woman he loves mingling with the people _she_ loves, the easy way she interacts with her colleagues.

He really should get her to bed; she has to work tomorrow and by the looks of things she's not exactly going to be feeling at the top of her game in the morning. "Come on, Mrs Castle. Let's get you a glass of water, hmm?"

"Rick, m'fine." She slurs at him, nimble fingers somehow sliding their way up underneath of his undershirt. "Not that drunk. Just happy."

"Okay, beautiful. I know. I'm happy too. Still, drink." He props her up against the kitchen island to fix her a glass of water, watches as she dutifully downs the whole thing and sets it on the counter.

Enormous eyes come up to meet his and she grins, slow and predatory as she moves to lace her arms around his neck. "Remember the night we made Jack?"

"Of course. Top ten." He laughs, darts in to kiss her. Of course, with the way they'd been going at it at the time they can't be _sure_, but he likes to imagine that their slow, easy lovemaking under the tree on New Year's Eve was the thing that gave their son life.

"Take me to bed." Kate says, the insistence in her words more of a clue than anything else to her sobriety. Huh. Maybe it was just the infectious hum of the city and the fun they had at the party tonight. Drunk on happiness, although the shots most definitely contributed some.

"You're amazing, you know that?" He murmurs against her mouth, their foreheads pressed close together. "You're amazing, and smart, and so- God, so sexy, Kate."

Laughing at the grit in his voice, Kate slips her hands into the back pockets of his slacks and squeezes, smirking at him. "You're not so bad yourself, babe. Now come on, I didn't just pick up a new dress and shoes for the party."

"You didn't?"

"Why don't you take this dress off and see for yourself?" She smirks, lifting an eyebrow at him in challenge. Castle tries hard not to choke; only half manages it if the amusement on her face is any indication.

Something chews away on his consciousness and he has to stop halfway to their bedroom, turn back around and wrap his hands around her waist to hold her still. "Wait. . .you went underwear shopping with my daughter? Did _she_ buy anything?"

Yes, thank you, he hears himself. That's just – he shudders – a little too much, even for him. And he's the cool dad, right?

"Rick, baby, stop thinking." His wife hums, somehow already has his shirt halfway unbuttoned. "Start _doing_."

Right, yes. Oh, Katherine Castle, he's all about the doing.


	21. Chapter 21

**Saturday, December 21****st**

* * *

Ohhh, God.

The light comes in like shards through her brain and Kate tries to groan, can't even muster the togetherness to care when it comes out as more of a whimper. Her husband's palm is warm between her shoulder blades and she screws her face into the pillow, grits her teeth against the clatter in her head.

"Hey, sweetheart. I have Advil, coffee and a hot shower already running for you. You really need to get up now, or you're gonna be late for work."

Reaching a hand up blindly behind her, Kate curls her fingers around Castle's neck and drags him down to land heavily on top of her. "Don't wanna."

"I know baby. But you need to. Come on. Is there anything else I can get you?" He murmurs to her, sitting up again and slipping a hand between the mattress and the plane of her abdomen. It gives him enough leverage to bring her up to a sitting position, although she slumps heavily against him and presses her eyes hard into his shoulder.

"Oh my God. What was I thinking? Why didn't you tell me?"

She swats at him and he laughs, kisses her cheek and pushes for absolutely nothing more than that. Sweet man. She's not mad at him, not really. More at herself, for losing control so absolutely.

Damn it, she's a mother of two and a half. She's a freaking _grandmother_, almost. And yet she got so swept up in the joy of the festive season and the truth of her husband at her side that she can only remember fragmented pieces of most of the night.

The things she did to him, though. . .they're not gone. God, the things she let him do to _her_. Kate flushes and gets to her knees in their bed, rakes her fingers through his hair. "Thank you, Rick. Last night was amazing."

"You can remember it?" He lifts an eyebrow and steps out of bed, takes both her hands in his to draw her out with him. Mindlessly following the delicious sound of the shower, Kate peels her shirt over her head and slips off her underwear. The bottomless hot water tank is securely in the top ten things she loves most about the loft.

When she steps behind the glass door, the steam comes in close and spreads its lovely fingers over her skin, quells the bubbling nausea. She won't throw up. It's not that bad.

Just the combination, she hopes, of the alcohol with the lack of sleep. Once she has a cup of coffee and a couple Advil inside her, she'll be just fine. Going through the motions mechanically, Beckett finishes up and steps out of the shower. Her favourite towel, the sinfully fluffy one, is waiting for her on the warmer and she smiles to herself as she knots it above her breasts.

"Castle, come here." She calls out, knows he's close. He appears from the bedroom, fully dressed now and with his own coffee cradled in his palms.

At the look on her face, he sets it down on the counter and comes in close, traces the path of a droplet of water from her neck down over her clavicle until it soaks into the deep plum of the towel. "You okay?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, Mrs Castle." He grins at her, comes in for a kiss. The inside of his mouth tastes like coffee, delicious, and she groans into him. "I'll go fix your cup. Get dressed. You want something to eat?"

"Toast?" She says, more to please him than because she's actually hungry. Her stomach revolts at the thought of food but she forces it into silence. Honestly, toast is probably a pretty good idea right now. "Thank you."

"No problem, love. Come get it when you're ready."

* * *

It's dark when Kate makes it home, and although that's not unusual it makes her unsettled today. A stark reminder that she hasn't seen her kids in almost twenty four hours straight. This morning's discomfort is gone from her brain and her day at the precinct was surprisingly stress-free.

So she's excited. Can't actually seem to keep still as she imagines gathering her little ones up close and scattering kisses over their beautiful, rosy cheeks. When she finally gets the door open Kate spills inside the loft and spots them curled up on the couch with their father and the dog, two expectant little faces lighting up at the sight of her.

"Mommy!" Twin cries settle low in her stomach, warm and good, and Kate drops to her knees to greet them.

Their joy, their love for her, is a constant surprise. Because she was so scared of screwing this up, of dragging her children into the darkness, but it's entirely the opposite. They force her into the light. "Hey my darlings, how are you? I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, Mommy." Her son says against the shell of her ear, so ridiculously adorable in his Spiderman pyjamas. His hair is a little flat on one side like he napped earlier, but his eyes are bright and alert on hers.

Bea tugs on Kate's sleeve and whines a little, tries to pull her mother towards the couch. "Mommy, Daddy did tell us _nothing_ about the party. Him said we have to wait for you."

Beckett arches an eyebrow at her husband and he shrugs, doesn't seem the slightest bit apologetic. Alright then. Stepping out of her heeled boots, Kate shrugs out of her coat as well and drops everything in a little pile by the door. She can deal with that later. Right now, she wants to just curl up with her family.

"I'm here now, sweetheart. Come cuddle up with Mommy and I'll tell you all about it." She opens her arms to the little girl and Bea climbs right up into her lap, her head dropping to rest against Kate's chest. Her daughter fists a hand in Kate's shirt and her eyes slip closed, apparently more tired than she was letting on before.

Castle stretches his arm across the back of the couch to bring her in against his side and she settles there comfortable, the boy curled in his father's arms now close enough that he can rest his hand against her wrist. The dog jumps down from the couch and comes around to Kate's side, climbing back up and settling down with his head on her thigh.

Snorting a laugh, Kate manages to free a hand to pat Rick's cheek in fake-comfort. "Sorry, Daddy. We all know who's the more popular one."

"Can't say I blame him." Castle shrugs, and Kate's laughter mellows out into a smile as she arches to kiss his jaw. That earns them a disgruntled sigh from her lap as their daughter peels an eye open to look at them. "Sorry, Beanie Ella."

"Mommy, who all was there?" Jack murmurs, burrowing down close against his father and letting his eyes slip closed.

Kate drops her hand to their daughter's head and sifts her fingers through the curls, lowering her voice to something melodic and peaceful. Sure, it's unconventional, but she sees no reason why the retelling of the Christmas party can't work as a bedtime story too. "Tío and Aunt Lanie, and Uncle Kevin and Aunt Jenny. And Cap and LT and Karpowski. Everyone was there."

"All them people." Bea arches like a cat in her mother's embrace, the threads of her consciousness unravelling as she listens. He body grows heavier and she sighs in contentment, Castle's hand tightening around Kate's shoulder to press the four of them closer together.

Carding a hand through her baby girl's hair, Kate lets her eyes slip closed and recalls the night, tries to pick out the more child-appropriate pieces. "There was lots of dancing. Aunt Lanie got Daddy to salsa with her and I took a video on my phone. I'll show you later if you like. And shall I tell you all about the decorations?"

"Oh yes, Mommy." Jack pipes up from somewhere near her elbow and Kate nods sincerely, burrows down a little further into the couch. Jeez, at this rate the kids won't be the only ones dozing off.

* * *

The next time Castle opens his eyes, his body feels untethered and insubstantial like he could float away. Missing the weight of his family on top of him, he sees his wife kneeling next to him with her palm curled over his shoulder and their children conspicuously absent. "Time s'it?"

"A little after eight." She hums to him, shifts around until she has her legs arranged over his thighs and her head pillowed right over his heart. "I put them to bed and tucked them in. Hope you don't mind."

"Of course not. You're their mother." He grunts, strokes his thumb over the inch of bare skin at her waist. "You okay?"

Kate nods at him and smiles softly, reaches for the throw over the arm of the couch to drape it over the two of them. She's sleepy and softer than usual, her movements lethargic as she wades through the sucking tide of unconsciousness. "I'm tired. But we shouldn't sleep yet."

"You haven't eaten." The realisation hits him hard and he moves as if to stand up, falters only at the touch of her fingers to his chin in supplication.

Lifting up a little, Kate presses a delicious and unhurried kiss to his mouth, her tongue stroking inside and sending a shudder through his body. "I'm not hungry. Well, not for that."

"Oh really?"

"Mm. They're out for the count, Rick. And telling them about the party just reminded me of all the other things that happened that I couldn't tell them about."

Oh, yes, he knows exactly what she's thinking off. The dancing and the drinking and then everything they did alone, their own very private after party. Shit, he's ruined already and all they're doing is talking. "You want a repeat performance?"

"Yes." She grins at him, stands up from the couch to offer him a hand. When he takes it she squeezes gently and leads him through to their bedroom, pushes him down to sit on the end of the bed so she can straddle his lap.

"Wait, wait." He grits out, hands at her hips to hold her still against him. "Kate, you're feeling better, right?"

This morning she looked so dreadfully pitiful, pale and trembling a little as he dragged her out of bed. The guilt has been heavy on his shoulders all day, so that when he went to pick up his children from his mother's place, she had taken him aside quietly and asked if he and Kate had fought at the party.

He'd waved her off, of course, but hadn't elaborated any more than that. His wife doesn't drink a lot by any standards, and so the few times she lets go are a rare and yes, precious commodity. But she's embarrassed by it, would never want her father or his mother or Alexis to see her that way.

So, yes, his mother didn't need to know that Kate was suffering hard from the effects of their night when she woke up. And then his kids had barrelled into his legs and clamoured to be picked up and altogether been so delighted to see him that he'd managed to forget until just now.

"I feel fine. Great, even." Kate says against his mouth, pressing a kiss to his lips and shifting more than a little impatiently in his lap. Oh God, okay.

"I'm so glad."

Her fingers card through his hair and she smiles at him, the tender one she mostly uses when one or both kids is being especially adorable. "I know you are, baby. So let's celebrate, hmm? Again."

Drunk sex with his wife is always fantastic, Kate even more wild and effervescent than usual, but there's something to be said for slow and intimate and sober in every sense of the word. Not just celebration, not just a release of tension, but an affirmation of everything they are together.


	22. Chapter 22

**Sunday, December 22****nd**

* * *

"Come on then, beautiful girl." Kate hears her husband murmuring to their daughter, opposite Jack and herself in the subway car. They have a child each, firmly in their laps to make room for the myriad other people also taking this subway line today.

Arranging her son's hat more firmly on his head, Kate holds the little hands in her own and bounces her knees to make Jackson laugh. Their gloves – his and hers – keep their skins from touching, but the warmth of him floods through regardless and he tips his head back to grin at her. "Mommy."

"Yes, my sweet boy?" She murmurs back to him, sees the elderly lady watching them from the corner of her eye. Not that Kate can blame the woman. Her son is adorable, she's spent hundreds of hours just watching him sleep in perfect contentment.

"At the museum there will be dinosaurs?"

Ah, yes. The Natural History Museum. Castle's idea – apparently they have some kind of Christmas exhibit or something. The kids have been before, of course, but not for a long time. "Don't you remember, baby? All kinds of dinosaurs."

"They come to life like the movie?"

"Sure they do." Castle pipes up from across the way, the thickness of his glove-free fingers apparently enough a source of entertainment for their little girl for the ride across town. "Only we won't get to see it. That's just for Larry and Nick, don't you think?"

"Yes Daddy." Jack nods, seems to be satisfied with that answer. Thank God for his father's quick thinking, the easy way he spins a story that, however implausible, is always logical enough to assuage their children.

Nuzzling her nose against the scarf-warmed skin of her little boy's neck, Kate tightens an arm around his waist and holds him close to her. Both of her children have their father's inquisitive nature, and so when they gang up on her with the man himself she really has no choice but to give in. "Those movies are based on a book, did you know that?"

"Really, Momma?"

"Yeah. How about this afternoon we head over to the library and see if they have it?" She catches her husband's eye and gets a nod of agreement from him, the movement jostling their daughter so she turns to look at him.

The subway train pulls in at the station and Castle glances at the map, ducks his head to get his mouth at Bea's ear. "Next stop is ours, sweetpea. You ready for an adventure?"

"I'm always ready, Daddy." Bea giggles, her palms pressed to her father's cheeks and fingers splayed wide. Kate smiles and shakes her head, catches the grin that her son sends over to his sister. Huh, yeah. They are. Always ready. Her crazy, amazing children.

The subway car moves off again and Jack shifts to look at her, drops a sloppy kiss to her cheek. "Mommy, will you look at all the things with me?"

Whenever they do this, a museum or the zoo or the aquarium, Bea and her father love to run right through and take in as much as they can, as fast as they can. But Jack, her son, he prefers to afford each and every thing the respect it deserves. He likes to stop and soak in it, look for the nuances that pass his sister right by. And Kate did that to him, gave him the gene that doesn't do well with spontaneity, so it's all she can do to stay right by his side.

"Of course I will, baby. We'll pair off. You and me, and Daddy and Beanie Ella. Okay? So you don't have to skip ahead when Bea gets bored."

Kate glances up to see her husband watching her and shrugs, lifts an eyebrow. But he's not challenging her, quite the opposite in fact. The softness all over his face seems more like pride. Like love.

"Thank you, Mommy." Her son says happily, curling an arm around her neck in a sort-of hug. Their train rattles to a stop at the station and Kate stands, Castle following close behind as she steps out of the carriage and into the station. People push in close from all sides and Kate wraps her arms a little tighter around her son and makes for the stairs.

Outside, the cold smacks fiercely into them and touches its fingers to her cheeks and the tip of her nose; makes Jack shiver and bury his face against her. Kate laughs and shields him the best she can as they cross the street and head down the sidewalk towards the museum entrance.

It looms before them, just as imposing and impressive as she remembered and a different sort of shiver cuts through her son. He releases a breath of excitement and clutches at her scarf, grabs for her hand when she sets him down to wait for his father and sister.

When Castle makes it to them with Bea in his arms, the four of them make their way up the steps and to the museum's front entrance. Both kids are wide-eyed and bubbling over with excitement and Castle snags her wrist before they step through the door, comes in close to get his mouth against her ear. "This is gonna require some suspension of disbelief on our part, babe. Should hear some of the things Bea was coming out with earlier."

"It's fine, Rick." She laughs, darting in to kiss him in spite of the frown her baby girl sends her way. "You get the crazy girl. I get our quiet, logical son."

"Fair enough." Her husband shrugs, bright points of light in his eyes when he gazes at her. "I love you, Kate Castle."

For some reason, she thinks back to that day in the grass with his body a dark smudge against the whole blue truth of the sky, the threads of her awareness unravelling in his hands as he begged her not to leave him. And then she blinks slowly, opens her eyes to him, her husband, and both her kids grinning up at her.

Worth it. All of it. "I love you, too."

* * *

The tiled floor of the upstairs bathroom is heated, wonderfully so, but it doesn't stop the hard slate from grating against her knees every time she shifts. Draping her forearms into the water, Kate swirls patterns against the surface with her fingertips and watches her children playing submarines.

Downstairs, her husband is fixing hot chocolate for a bedtime snack, the book they stopped at a store and bought rather than taking it out of the library waits on the end table in Kate and Rick's bedroom. But first, bath time. "Alright, you two. Time for shampoo."

"Can we do hairstyles, Mommy?" Bea blinks up at her through the droplets of water coalescing at the fringe of her lashes. Kate laughs and shakes her head in amusement, pours a generous amount of their apple shampoo onto her palm and rubs her hands together to lather it up.

Reaching for her son first, Kate scrubs the shampoo through the damp mass of his curls and then schools her face into sobriety, lifts her eyebrows at him. "What can I do for you today, sir?"

"Do big spikes please Mommy." Her son giggles, turning away from her to give her better access to the bulk of his hair. Right. Spikes. Better get to work.

Once she's finally finished with her son, his hair caught up all over his head as if he's been electrocuted, Kate turns to her baby girl and pours more soap into the cup of her hands, lathers it right into Bea's hair. "And for you, madam?"

"A big line, Mommy. Please."

A big line? "You mean a Mohawk, baby girl? All spiked up down the middle?"

"Yes please." Bea grins, closing her eyes and leaning back against the edge of the bathtub so Kate can work with her hair. When her daughter's style is finished Kate rinses the leftover shampoo from her hands and presses her wrist to her mouth to stifle the laughter, shaking her head.

"Castle." She calls out, hears the heavy footfalls of her husband moving towards the stairs and then coming up, growing louder as he moves down the hall. He appears in the doorway of the bathroom and laughs out loud, comes inside to sit on the closed lid of the toilet.

"Wow, look at you two. Did Mommy do your hair?" Rick grins, nudging at Kate's foot with his own toes. "That's awesome. Can I take a picture?"

"Don't put it on twitter." Kate says, lifting an eyebrow at him. It's her only rule when it comes to that sort of stuff, really. To limit their children's exposure to it wherever they can.

Castle comes to kneel next to her and tugs his phone free from his pocket, brings up the camera application as he curls an arm around Kate's waist. "Okay. I can send it to my mother and Alexis, though?"

"Of course." Kate rests her cheek to his shoulder and watches as he frames the shot, both kids giving him ridiculously cheesy grins. He's warm and solid next to her and suddenly a wave of exhaustion washes through her. More than anything, she wants to curl up in bed with her family.

"Hot chocolate's almost done. You okay to rinse them off and do pyjamas?" He asks, drops a kiss to her cheek as he gets to his feet. Not as easily as he once did, but he blames it all on his bad knee and brushes off any possibility of it being, well, age.

He's got ten years on her, and it's not a problem at all. Until she thinks of how that might play out at the other end of their lives, what ten years without him might do to her. Biting down hard on the inside of her lip, Kate grits her teeth and moves to unhook the shower head from the wall and turn on the water, start rinsing the shampoo off of her children.

And then she doesn't even have to pretend, because their laughter is so contagious she can't help herself but to join in. Kate holds a huge, fluffy towel open for her son and he steps out of the bath and into her arms, burrows in close when she tightens them around him. She scrubs the towel through his hair to dry it off a little and then drapes it over his shoulders, guides him to stand at her side as she repeats the motions with her baby girl.

When both kids are dry and dressed in flannel pyjamas warm and fresh from the dryer, Kate takes a little hand in each of hers and leads them downstairs with her. Castle rounds the counter carrying a tray with four hot chocolates and Kate falls in step behind her husband with her children haunting her sides, Snicket heading up the very back.

Kate turns down the sheets and climbs into bed, takes the tray from Rick and sets it down on her nightstand as he lifts both kids up onto the mattress and climbs in himself. Her husband settles propped half-upright against the headboard and their children burrow down into the warm, dark space between their bodies.

Dishing out hot chocolate to the kids, Kate keeps a hold of both her own mug and Castle's as he arranges himself with the book and holds it open one-handed. He doesn't begin to read, though, just watches his family as they sip their hot chocolate. Kate grins at him from over the rim of her mug, lets him see the work of her throat as she swallows. "What do you say to Daddy, guys?"

"Thank you for mine hot chocolate." Bea bats her eyes at her father and snuggles in a little closer to his side, seeking the cove of his body for shelter in much the same way that Kate herself does. Jack echoes his sister's sentiments and Castle grins, drops a kiss to each dark head before he comes in to touch his mouth to Kate's own.

"Anything for my family."


	23. Chapter 23

**Monday, December 23****rd**

* * *

"Christmas Eve-Eve." Castle grins, stretching out the full length of his body over the rippling bluish-grey lake of their sheets. His wife rolls her eyes at him but all the same she reaches up to curl her fingers behind his neck and draw him down for a kiss.

Kate's lashes lift on a hum of contentment and she smiles at him, slow-spreading and beautiful. The hard edge of the early morning sunlight makes her seem pale and a little fragile, so Castle moves to align his body with hers and press her into the mattress with the weight of his pelvis.

Hooking a leg around his waist, Kate rolls her hips up against his and grins, arching her neck to get her mouth against his again. "I have to go to work."

"I know." He murmurs, ghosting his mouth over the ridge of her cheekbone and down to draw her earlobe into his mouth, lave his tongue over it. "But not right this second."

"There's no time." She laughs at him, somehow finding leverage with her foot planted against the mattress to flip him over. Straddling his hips, Kate sits up tall and the proud flare of her body draws him in even through her clothes, makes his mouth dry.

"We could make time."

A crash from the living room startles them both and he drives his hips up against his wife harder than he means to, gasps out an apology as he sits up and cups her shoulder blades in his palms. "What was that?"

He gets a shrug from Kate as she peels herself out of bed and steps into her slippers, readjusting the waistband of her pants where they've gotten a little twisted. "Let's go find out."

Right, yes. That.

She doesn't take her gun, so he supposes Kate doesn't think it's an intruder or anything like that. Trailing his wife out to the living room, Castle sees his little boy standing next to a toppled over chair, so much guilt on the upturned moon of his face that Rick has to bite down hard on his lip so as not to laugh.

"Jackson Roy, what's going on?" Kate says sternly, folding her arms and frowning down at their son. Half of Castle wants to tell him to run, that it's the only way to escape his mother's wrath. But then again, he does so love angry Kate.

Sexy. As long as her rage is not directed at him.

"I'm sorry, Mommy." Jack whispers, huge eyes filling with tears as he stares up at the two of them. He plays with the hem of his pyjama shirt and his bottom lip trembles, looking every inch the picture of innocence.

Castle gets down at his son's level, kneeling in front of him and planting his hands at Jack's shoulders to keep him in place. He and Kate are well accustomed to the good cop, bad cop routine. And, most surprising of all, she's not _always_ the bad one.

There have been times where he's had to yell and the kids have scurried straight into Mommy's waiting arms. Just. . .the way it goes with them. "Jack, my man, tell me what happened."

"I-" a choking sob that he swallows back, and then his little body is crashing into his father's chest and he's burying his face against Rick's neck. "I wanted my calendar and Bea's. We were gonna play quiet because you were sleeping, but then I falled."

"Baby, what's the rule about calendar before breakfast?" Kate says, but she comes down to their level and settles a palm between the wings of their son's shoulder blades.

Glancing at his mother from the safety of Castle's neck, Jack blinks slowly and reaches out a hand to curl in Kate's collar. "No calendar."

"That's right. Daddy and I were just getting up, baby. You wouldn't have had to wait long."

Heh. Oh yes, Kate Castle, he was definitely getting up. Somehow, she can tell exactly what he's thinking, because she swats his arm and rolls her eyes at him.

"Come here, beautiful boy." Kate opens her arms to their son and draws the boy in close, cups the curve of his skull and rocks back and forth. "Don't cry, baby. It's okay. We're not mad."

They're not? He _toppled a chair_. Could have seriously hurt himself; he'd like to be at least a little bit mad. "But that doesn't make it okay, buddy. You could have really hurt yourself."

"I'm sorry, Daddy." He says, but his mischievous grin is already beginning to make a reappearance. Damn it, he's just too adorable. Well, and it doesn't help that he sees so very much of Kate in their son. How Kate must have been as a tiny wisp of a thing.

Yes, it's fair to say that he sympathises with Jim Beckett to an even deeper level now. "It's alright, my man. You're forgiven. But next time, if you can't wait, come get Mommy or me."

"Okay Daddy."

"Now, how's about you go get Bea and we'll do family breakfast? And then calendars." His baby boy nods at him and scampers off up the stairs and he snatches hold of their last moment of solitude with both hands, plants a hot kiss to Kate's mouth.

His wife's slender fingers curl around his ears and she grins into his mouth, tugs him up to stand with her. "He's so much like you."

"Like me?" He raises an eyebrow, shakes his head. "Stubborn, mischievous, smart and creative? That's all on you, babe."

"Whatever." She rolls her eyes at him and makes for the kitchen, tugging open the refrigerator and chewing on her lip. "You think eggs will do?"

"Only if you make them. Yours are the best." Castle grins, coming up behind her and wrapping both arms around her waist, his chin settling at her shoulder. Kate hums and turns her head, kisses the cleft of his chin before she shakes herself free from his grip and pulls a carton of eggs from the shelf, fetches a bowl.

"Can you do toast?"

He grins and snags a loaf of bread, loads up the toaster with several slices and makes a production of pushing down the levers to send the bread down to the depths of the oven. "You want soldiers, Mommy?"

"Sure. Do a bunch?"

"I'll do a whole battalion." He grins at her, fetches plates and butter. Not much he can do right now except wait for the toasts to be done, so Rick busies himself with seeing exactly how near to Kate he can get before she elbows him or brandishes the whisk in his face.

The eggs are beaten to within an inch of their lives, milk and butter and cheese and probably other things that his wife simply refuses to admit to are all thrown into the mix and then Kate flips on the burner and melts butter into the pan. The graceful way she moves in their kitchen, the measured precision of her fingers and wrists and elbows, has him so utterly entranced that the noise of the toast popping up startles him.

And of course, of course she saw that and she's laughing at him even as she pours the eggs into the pan. He turns his back on her so he can at least actually concentrate and starts buttering toasts, slices them up as uniformly as he can manage for soldiers once he's done.

Footsteps, light and quick on the stairs, draw his attention and he glances up, grins wide at his youngest two children as they come to sit at the island. Last week, Kate said she wanted to shoot for more family dinners around the table, but this is breakfast, so. . .doesn't count, right?

"Good morning, Bea. You two want some orange juice?"

"Daddy. . .we have coffee?" His daughter blinks up at him slowly, an almost ridiculous pout to her lower lip. Mm-hmm, that's Kate alright. So evident in both of their children.

But- coffee, crap. He spins around to look at the machine and finds it sending its very last precious drops down into the mostly-full pot below.

"Already on it." Kate smirks at him, flicking off the burner and serving up their eggs into a bowl. Somehow, even one-handed as she flicks her free fingers towards the pot in instruction, she still does this more gracefully than even on his best days. He gives up. Maybe Kate should just be the one to always cook breakfast.

Rick raises an eyebrow at his wife and sets a plate in front of each of his children, doles out toast soldiers for them. "What do you think, Mommy? Can they have coffee?"

"Hmm." Kate pretends to think on it, but every line of her body is telling him yes. Such a pushover when it comes to her babies. "I guess it _is_ Christmas, after all."

She shrugs and the kids cheer, clamouring for her to come closer so they can pepper kisses to her cheeks. He takes a moment just to watch them, his crazy family, and then he pours a cup of milk for each child and puts them in the microwave.

Once they're done, he fetches the coffee pot and splashes a few drops into each mug. Not enough really for even the taste of it to hit them, certainly no way the caffeine can do them any damage, but they love to pretend like they're grownups, and the splash of coffee they're allowed lends its colour generously to their milk.

Really, he doesn't remember when the tradition started. Only that it's one of his very favourites. Finishing up stirring, Castle sets the mugs down in front of his kids. "Here you go, munchkins."

"Not a munchkin, Daddy." His daughter huffs at him, frowning hard, and Kate pinches the soft skin of his side where they're shielded from their children by the counter.

He winces but by some miracle manages to swallow back his yelp and turn to glare at his wife. Part of him wants to press a bruising kiss to her mouth, but the kids are watching them intently and it's really not worth the noises of disgust. So maybe later. "No? Then what are you?"

"We're elves!" Jack beams, looks inordinately proud of himself and then his sister reaches up for a high five and his whole face just lights up with joy. And, yeah, when Rick glances at his wife he finds her looking much the same.

Rounding the counter, Kate drops a kiss to the top of their son's head and settles in at their daughter's side, reaching for a plate to serve herself some eggs as she watches him fix her a cup of coffee. "And what wonderful elves you are, too."

"Alright, you two. What shall we do today?" He throws over his shoulder, concentrating on heating the milk for Kate's latte exactly the way she likes it. Once he's done, he presents it to her with a flourish, the foam shaped as close to a Christmas tree as he could get it.

Bea grins at him from underneath a milk moustache, half her glass already gone, but he's proud to note that she swallows her mouthful of eggs before she speaks. "We can go to the park with Snicket, Daddy? And then I want to show Jack-Jack that store with the big big windows and the statues. And then. . .we can bake!"

Sure, why not. "That sounds good, sweet girl. Mommy, anything in particular you want us to bake? We'll have it waiting for when you come home."

"Ooh, how about gingerbread? You can ice them into all different shapes." She grins, smirking at him. Oh sure, Kate, choose the messiest damn thing you can think of.

No matter. It's Christmas. Gingerbread cookies it will be. "Great idea, Mommy."

Castle braces his palms against the counter top and leans across to kiss his wife, catches the slightly bitter taste of coffee and then underneath so-familiar Kate.

"I should go get dressed if I'm not gonna be late." She murmurs, slipping down from her stool and kissing both kids before she disappears into the bedroom. He watches her go with what he can only hope is a not-too-ridiculous smile stretching his face.

Last day before Christmas.


	24. Chapter 24

**Tuesday, December 24****th**

* * *

"Lexi!" Bea shrieks and runs for her older sister, skidding a little in her white tights as she barrels across the hardwood. The deep red velvet of her dress flies out around her knees as Alexis lifts her up for a hug and she buries her head against her sister's neck.

The soft fingers of the red ribbon in her hair trail over her shoulders as it comes undone again and Kate sighs, resigns herself to the fact that she might have to take it out entirely. No matter how much Bea might want to wear it.

At her feet, Kate's son hovers like a shadow in his button down and slacks, a mini version of his father only without the vivid exuberance. It's only his family, sure, but Jack takes a while to warm up to social situations like this one.

Alexis comes inside, her husband trailing her with the baby in his arms, and sets down a huge bag of gifts next to the tree. "Hey, everyone. Are you excited?"

Bea squeals again and Kate rolls her eyes, huffs a breath of laughter at her baby girl. Coming around the kitchen island, Kate draws her almost-daughter in for a hug and then drops a kiss to the pale stretch of Harry's little forehead that shows beneath his knitted cap. "The kids are super excited for Santa."

"Me too." Alexis grins, wide and beautiful, and heads for the kitchen. Castle's sort of trapped in front of the stove in his ridiculous apron, 'head elf' emblazoned across his chest in crisp green, but he shoots longing glances towards his eldest daughter until she comes to him for a hug. "Hi, Dad."

"Hi pumpkin."

Eli taps Kate's shoulder to catch her attention, offers her the baby and she takes him gladly, draws him in close. He turns a wide smile up to her, his fist closing around a handful of her hair. "Hey there, sweet boy. Look at you."

The elf theme is apparently running rife this Christmas, even among their extended family. Harry has on a green onesie, the lower half of it striped red and white and the belt and buttons of the traditional elf outfit proudly displayed on the front. Kate smoothes her free hand down the pencil skirt of her dress and fixes the lace overlay, the red a siren song that meant she had to fight to escape the clutch of Castle's hands when they changed earlier.

Perhaps not as festive as it could be, but it certainly inspired the Christmas spirit in her husband. "Can I get anyone a drink?"

"I'm driving, so. . .lemonade?" Eli says, following Jack as he tugs on Alexis' husband's hand to guide him over to the dining table. Earlier today they made the gingerbread house and now it sits pride of place in the centre of the table.

"Sure. Lex?" Kate calls out to the younger woman, the fall of her hair like flame and set off perfectly by the deep green of her blouse.

Alexis grins and comes around the counter, takes her son back from Kate and heads for the couch, Bea crawling up to sit with her. "Lemonade's great for me too, thanks. I'd better feed him."

In the kitchen, Kate's husband sets a palm at her spine and draws her in close, kisses her softly. "Hey there, gorgeous. You good?"

"I'm great." She says against his mouth and then breaks away, moving for the refrigerator before either of them can get too carried away. Fetching lemonade and ice, Kate pours a glass for Alexis and Eli and a smaller one each for Jack and Bea.

A knock at the door startles her and she spills some lemonade at the flesh between her thumb and forefinger, sucks at the sticky liquid as she heads to answer it. "Hey, Dad. Martha."

"Hello darling." Castle's mother draws her in to an embrace and drops a kiss to her cheek, swipes at the lipstick mark with her thumb before she heads into the loft to greet all three of her grandchildren.

Kate's father hesitates a little awkwardly and she laughs, tugs him in for a hug. "I know, Dad. It's a little chaotic. But I'm so glad you're here."

"Wouldn't want to be anywhere else." He says quietly, and honestly Kate didn't realise how much she needed the assurance before he offered it up to her. "Now, what've you done with my grandchildren?"

"Papa!" Jack spots his grandfather and wriggles his way out of Martha's grip, comes to join Kate and her father at the door. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Jackson. Mommy tells me you drew me a picture?" He smiles down at Kate's son; those so-familiar lines at the corners of his eyes entrenched a little deeper every year. God, it's good to have him here.

Closing the door, Kate leans back against it and takes a moment just to watch, meeting her husband's eyes through the rabble and smiling for him, wide and bright. It's just. . .overwhelming in how good it all is, how amazing to be here and have the loft spilling over with their family.

Enough of being on the outside. Kate moves to join Castle in the kitchen and nudges her hip against his, peers through the glass of the oven to check on their ham. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Can you get started on mashing the potatoes, babe?" Rick says, wiping his hands off on his apron so he can tuck an errant curl behind her ear and drop a kiss to her cheek. "Let me go say hello to my mother and Jim and I'll be right back to help."

"Sure." She smiles, turning to the stove and the pot of potatoes waiting to be mashed. This is something she can do to help, something to show her gratitude for this wonderful man and everything he does for her.

* * *

Castle runs the brush through his youngest daughter's sopping hair and wraps the ends in the towel, squeezes out all the water that collected there. "Okay, baby girl. Did you and Jack check if Santa replied to your letters?"

"Yes, with Grammy and Papa. But we not opened them."

"You ready to do that now, then?" He says, scooping her up and carrying her downstairs. The soft kisses he drops to her cheeks make her squirm and giggle in his arms and then she blows a raspberry against his neck in retaliation.

In the living room, his wife and his mother are settled on the couch with Jack between them and Jim in the chair opposite. Castle sinks into the other armchair and arranges his baby girl in his arms, facing outwards so she can send her mother a mischievous grin.

"Okay. Open the letters first? And then we'll set out Santa's snacks."

"Sounds good" Kate says, standing up to collect both envelopes and hand them over to each of the kids. Bea tears into hers right away and opens the paper up, holding it out for Castle to read it to her. And yes, okay, he wrote them himself, but it's still pretty exciting.

Infectious, the way both children fill up with so much joy that the adults can't help but be wrapped up in it too. Once he's finished reading, his baby girl folds her letter back up and clutches it close to her chest, grinning so wide and bright up at him.

On the opposite couch, Jack had curled up in Kate's lap and listened to Bea's letter before he even started with his own. Now, he opens it slowly and reads it himself, out loud and stumbling over the occasional word. Kate whispers prompts into the shell of his ear, both arms tight around him, and he makes it to the end of his letter almost entirely by himself.

"Good job, buddy." Castle grins at his son, bouncing his knees to make Bea laugh and clutch at his arm. Jack smiles back, looks so proud of himself, and Rick has no idea what his wife is whispering to their son but it only makes his grin stretch wider.

"Right." Kate declares, sliding Jack off of her lap and onto the couch cushion next to her so she can stand. "Who wants to help me get Santa's snacks ready?"

"Me, me!" The kids cry in chorus, slipping down from the couch and trailing their mother into the kitchen. Castle stands up to follow with Jim and his mother close behind, the three of them crowding around the counter to watch Kate.

So wonderfully natural with them, like it's not a challenge for her whatsoever to infuse their children's lives with magic. And it's not, of course it's not, but it still catches him by surprise. That Detective Beckett, that sheltered, serious woman could become this.

"Okay, guys. We need a glass of milk for Santa and a mince pie. And a carrot for Rudolph." She says, lifting them both to sit on the counter top.

Jackson gets to pour the milk – not sherry, in deference to Jim's presence – into the tall glass, his sister tasked with taking the mince pie from the packet and plating it up with the carrot. Their mother fetches a crisp white note card and a pen, writes a short note in her graceful cursive and then guides the kids to sign their own names.

"All done." She caps the pen and sets the note card out on the counter next to the glass and plate, lifts the kids back down to the floor. "Okay, Papa's going to read you a story tonight. Say goodnight to everyone else."

Castle finds himself suddenly with his arms full of his baby girl and laughs softly, kisses her cheeks and murmurs to her. "Goodnight, beautiful girl. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Daddy." She whispers back, and then she's wriggling to get down and he gets a warm and lovely hug from his son instead.

Jack pillows his head against Rick's shoulder and relaxes right into his father's embrace, his mouth cracking wide open on a yawn. "Daddy, this is the best Christmas ever. I love you."

"I love you too, sweet boy." He chokes out, has to avoid Kate's eyes or else he really will cry.

When the goodnights are finished, Jim heads upstairs with a child's hand in each of his, looking absolutely in his element. Castle finds himself suddenly swamped with gratitude that Kate's father was able to make it back from the cabin, to be here with them.

"Okay. Kate, love, can you grab the stockings? And I'll get their fillers."

* * *

By the time they make it to bed, Kate is thoroughly wiped out. They scattered footprints made in fake snow with her father's hiking boots in a path from the door to the stockings, Snicket chewed up half of the carrot and Rick drank the milk, the mince pie shared between the grandparents.

Kate's heart sits heavy in her chest, a strange mix of joy and melancholia laced around it. The loft looks amazing, and the kids will be so incredibly excited in the morning. But how many more years of this do they have? Especially with children as inquisitive as theirs are. She can only hope that they'll be able to hold onto the magic for a long time to come.

Her husband climbs into bed beside her and comes in close, glancing at the clock on the nightstand before he drops his mouth to hers. "It's after midnight. Merry Christmas, Mrs Castle. I love you."

Hips nudging up against his, Kate laces her arms over his shoulders and grins into his kiss, sifts her fingers through the soft hair at his nape. "Thank you, Rick. I'm so glad it's you that I'm doing this with.

"Me too, love. Not anyone else, not ever."

There are so many things she would like to say, ways in which she can make it clear to him just how much she truly does treasure every moment they get to spend with their family. Instead, she draws him down to brush her mouth over his, rolling him over to sit astride his hips. "Want to celebrate?"

"Oh, yes." He laughs, sitting up to cradle her spine and bring her torso in flush with his own. He kisses her harder, then, fingers seeking bare skin and she shudders hard.

Merry Christmas indeed.


	25. Chapter 25

**Wednesday, December 25****th**

* * *

Kate wakes with a start, heart hammering against the birdcage of her ribs and both her children peering down at her where they sit astride her chest. Right, so that's why she can't suck in a deep breath. Tipping them off of her so they sprawl between her body and Castle's, Kate sits up and laughs at the two of them, apparently mute with excitement.

"Good morning, guys. What's going on?"

"It's Christmas!" Bea whisper-yells, and apparently this is the thing that rouses her father, because Castle splutters up through the surface of sleep and rubs at his eyes, cracks one open. Kate drops a kiss to his cheek, the dark scattering of stubble like snow in negative, and rubs her palm between his shoulder blades to try and wake him a little more gently.

"Sorry, Daddy." Bea whispers, curling up on her father's chest like a kitten. Next to her in the sheets, Jack almost vibrates with excitement and clutches at his mother's hand.

Rick, to his credit, seems to already be wide awake and he pushes back the sheets to step out of bed. The floor must be cold because he hisses and hops over to his slippers, shoves them on and reaches for a sweatshirt too.

"Mommy, up, up." Jack says, shoving at her non-too-gently in an attempt to get her out of bed. Alright, fine. Kate shrugs her way into her robe and finds her slippers half-under the bed, shoves them on too.

"I'm up. Okay Daddy, go start coffee, the kids and I will wake up Papa and Grams."

Castle comes in to kiss her, morning-breath and all, and the kids scowl and tug at the leg of her pyjama pants. Laughing, Kate scoops them both up and heads for the living room, Castle following close behind. At the foot of the stairs she sets them both down and ushers them ahead of her, turning back to press a last kiss to her husband's mouth.

"Merry Christmas."

"You too, Kate." He grins, and then there's a crash from upstairs and Kate takes the flight two at a time to try and save her father and mother-in-law from too much of a brutal awakening. It seems that the noise was just Bea knocking over her toy box in her haste to find her favourite stuffed animal of the moment, and both of the grandparents' doors are still firmly closed.

"Gram first." Kate whispers to the kids, opens Martha's door slowly. Castle's mother needs a little more time to make herself presentable, but Kate's father will be ready to go as soon as they wake him, so at least this way Martha gets a little more time for herself.

The kids charge for their grandmother's bed and climb up onto it before Kate can direct them otherwise, so she presses her fingers to her mouth to quell the laughter and leans back against the doorframe to watch the scene unfold.

To her credit, Martha opens her arms to the kids and brings them both in for a hug with no trace of annoyance at the rude awakening, her graceful hands carding through Bea's hair. "Good morning, darlings. Katherine, please tell me my son is making coffee."

"He is, yeah. Let me go wake my dad and then we'll do stockings, if that's okay?"

"Sounds wonderful, darling." Martha says, sitting up further against the headboard and stretching her fingers. The arthritis plagues her in the mornings, more than she'd like to admit to, Kate's sure.

No matter. She handles it well enough, and Kate doesn't doubt that if her crazy children get to be too much then Martha will send them back her way. "Be nice with Grams, guys. I'm gonna go wake up Papa."

Slipping from the room, Kate heads across the hall and knocks softly on Jack's bedroom door. Her father took her son's bed and Jackson bunked on Bea's floor last night; Kate and Rick were both surprised that the kids got to sleep at all with each other there as a playmate.

Kate finds her father already awake, but that's not really a surprise. He's always been an early riser; it's undoubtedly where she gets it from. "Hey, sorry about the noise."

"Don't be ridiculous, Katie." He shakes his head at her and steps out of bed, pulls on his robe. "It's nice to have a full house for Christmas again."

"Good to have you here, Dad." She murmurs, drawing her father in for a hug.

He laughs and breaks away from her after a moment, shakes his head. "Don't get maudlin, Katie-bug. I know you miss her. But look how amazing your kids are, hmm? Focus on them."

"Sorry." Kate laughs, swallowing back the clog of emotion in her throat and heading for the door. The kids and Martha are waiting in the hallway, and when Bea sees her mother she clamours to be picked up. Lifting her baby girl into her arms, Kate breathes in the sleepy scent of her and heads for the stairs, the rest of her family warm and close at her back.

Castle meets them at the foot of the stairs and hands a coffee each to Jim and Martha, herds the kids towards the couch. "You guys go sit with Papa and Gram and wait two seconds while Mommy and I get coffee, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy. Hurry." Bea implores, snagging her brother's hand and hurrying over to the couch with him. Kate follows her husband into the kitchen and takes the coffee he offers her, and then the embrace as well.

"You are so amazing, Kate Castle." He breathes against her temple, his palm soothing where it rests between her shoulder blades. "Look at this beautiful family we made."

Kate settles one arm at Rick's waist and slips her fingers in between the waistband of his pyjama pants and the lovely warmth of his skin, her coffee mug cradled between their bodies. "You're pretty amazing yourself, Castle."

"I wish I could kiss you. But alas, the impatient children await." He laughs against her cheek and nudges her towards the living room and the expectant, joyful faces of their children.

* * *

Castle can't quite seem to stop touching his wife. All through dinner – mostly leftovers, but he enjoys that almost as much as the meal itself – he kept his fingers curled around her knee. And now, curled up on the couch with the kids and watching _The Polar Express_, she's mostly in his lap.

Most amazing of all, though, is that she doesn't seem to mind. Sure, there have been moments where she's shaken him off, but it's only been to tend to one of the kids' toys or to pour another drink for his mother. She always comes back.

"Did you think we'd get here?" He hums against the shell of her ear, the thick curl of her hair brushing his cheek and tickling him every time she moves her head.

She shrugs, and he resigns himself to that as an answer, but then she wriggles in his lap until she can look at him, somehow managing to keep her feet still so as not to disturb the sleepy boy curled up on top of them. "I hoped. For longer than I even wanted to admit to myself."

"I'm really glad we made it." He murmurs, slipping his hands underneath her shirt to splay his fingers against her stomach. She hums in agreement and nestles back closer against him, rests her cheek to his shoulder.

Rick surveys the room, his mother regal in one of the armchairs and his daughter curled up in her grandfather's lap in the other. They'll see Alexis and her family for Boxing Day tomorrow, today was spent with Eli's parents instead.

And of course his daughter's absence is an ever-present ache, but it's okay. She's happy; she has her husband and her son and her husband's family. She's so loved, and really there's nothing more he could have wanted for her.

Castle lets his eyes slip closed and rests his mouth at his wife's cheek, thinks back on their day. The infallible excitement of his children as they unwrapped their stockings from Santa, how they showed both their mother and himself everything that they received.

It took every ounce of his mother's acting genes that he could scrape together to feign surprise every time he was reacquainted with a toy or a book or a puzzle that he bought last month. And then there was the exploration of all their new things while the grandparents fixed lunch, poor Kate enlisted into helping play with absolutely everything.

Probably her way of making up for last year, but she threw herself completely into it, poured all of her focus and her energy into the vivid imaginations of their children.

The dog lifts his head at a particularly loud part of the movie, seems to raise an eyebrow before he closes his eyes again and lies back down. Poor thing is still wearing the antlers that Bea spotted in a store last week and declared that he simply had to have, seems to have resigned himself to his new attire.

His mother stands up from her chair and heads for the kitchen, stoops low next to his ear so as not to disturb the movie with her words. "You want tea, darling?"

"That would be lovely, thank you Mother. Kate?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, thank you." His wife smiles, wide and gorgeous, and Castle has to force himself to wait for his mother to just go, already, before he can kiss her.

She gives it right back to him, careful to keep it light and a little tentative but all the same, so rich with love. "I love you so much, Kate Beckett."

Her fingers come to his cheek and she rests her forehead to his, must see all the things he can't quite find the words for written all over his face anyway. "I know, Rick. You never give me any reason to doubt. And, I love you, too."

The movie ends and Castle finds the remote to turn it off, sees that both his son and his youngest daughter are completely sacked out. Well, he can't really blame them. With the exuberance they threw into their morning he's surprised they lasted as long as they did.

"Help me put them to bed?" He asks his wife, shifts her carefully off of his lap and onto her feet before he stands to join her. Rick gathers his son up from the couch and holds him close, waits for Kate to collect their daughter from her grandfather's chest before he moves for the stairs.

Settling his son in bed, Rick pulls the sheets up and tucks them in close around him, closes the curtains to cast the room into darkness. Jack smells warm and familiar when Castle presses a careful kiss to his forehead, murmuring against the soft skin there. "I love you, Jack. So much. Merry Christmas."

Moving for the door, Rick passes his wife in the hallway as she heads back the way he came and he slips into his baby girl's room.

He kneels next to his daughter's bed and strokes a hand through her hair, kisses her cheek and murmurs softly to her. "Sleep tight, Little Bean. Daddy loves you so much."

Meeting his wife in the hallway again, Castle stops her with a touch of his fingers to her wrist and draws her in to an embrace, drops a kiss to the pale line of her scalp like a seam of moonlight amidst the darkness of her hair. "You know I understand that your job's important and you can't help but miss out on some things, but God, Kate. . .it's so good to have you here."

"I know, baby. I know." She hums to him, her fingers somehow meeting all the places he most needs her touch. Soothing and gentle and so amazing, and the gratitude clogs his throat, robs him off both words and breath. "Thank you, Castle. For never giving up on me. For knowing this was worth the battle, even when I wasn't sure. I don't know how I can ever repay you."

He swallows hard, touches two fingers to her chin so she lifts her head, and then his mouth meets hers with so much tenderness that the whole liquid length of her seems to melt against him. Breaking their kiss, he smiles down at her and swipes away the single tear that slips down her cheek, kisses its silvery path. "This is how, love. This is enough."

* * *

A/N: Thank you all so much for your kind words of praise and encouragement throughout the duration of this story. It has been truly a blessing. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, or whatever else you may celebrate. See you in the new year.


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